


Commander Fox is Completely Fine

by Maddy_B



Series: The not good, very bad, terrible Jedi [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: CC-1010 | Fox Needs A Hug, CC-1010 | Fox Whump, Coruscant Guards (Star Wars), M/M, Slow Burn, Tired CC-1010 | Fox
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-12 23:21:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 28,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29517321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maddy_B/pseuds/Maddy_B
Summary: Cody was still staring at him. Fox wasn't sure what made him keep talking."It's always the shinies who think they're invincible," he muttered, "who think they're above the rules."Cody nodded slowly."Yeah," he said, voice a little hoarse, "that's usually how I lose them too."Fox watched as his little brother finished the rest of his drink and stared down into his empty cup.It wasn't the same, he wanted to say. That's a battlefield, this is the centre of the Republic, it's different. The truth is that it's not as different as it should be.
Relationships: CC-1010 | Fox & CC-3636 | Wolffe, CC-1010 | Fox & Original Character(s), CC-1010 | Fox & Quinlan Vos, CC-1010 | Fox/Quinlan Vos, CC-2224 | Cody & CC-1010 | Fox
Series: The not good, very bad, terrible Jedi [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2114412
Comments: 82
Kudos: 241





	1. Dead Troopers on Coruscant

**Author's Note:**

> Set about a year before 30 hours on Millbillillie, first fic in this series, but you don't need to have read those first.
> 
> Be nice if you did though.
> 
> The title is from a book my mom made me read: Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, by Gail Honeyman. It's brilliant, and heartbreaking, and if you've read it you might be able to see where the general theme of the story is going to go. I have a beginning, I have an end, I am working on the middle. Slowly, so apologies about that. I'll probably continue to post some cracky/fluffy/porny one shots as I work, but I promise I will also try and update this regularly.
> 
> I'll update the tags as I go, because I'm genuinely not sure what they will be yet.
> 
> Please enjoy.

Fox looked down at the body in front of him, bruised and bloodied.

His own face stared back up at him, eyes glassy and unseeing. 

It wasn’t his _own_ face, of course, not really. It was a face he shared with millions of others, all across the galaxy. It didn’t make looking at the body in front of him less eerie or unpleasant. 

Carrion, the Guard's chief medic, pulled back from examining the body with a tired, blank look in his eyes. He pulled the sheet back up and over, settling it over the man’s face.

Barely a man, even in the eyes of the Vode.

Kid hadn’t even reached his tenth decant day yet.

Fox nodded at the crematorium operator, who quietly stowed the body away in case the kid's CO wanted to see the body. They probably would if it was another of the vode. Unlikely, if it was a natborn.

Fox nodded to the troopers by the door as he left the room, Carrion a half step behind him as they walked out into the hallways and back through the building towards the Coruscant Guard main offices. 

Fox studied the other faces, all the same, that he saw as he walked. He didn't see very many, in truth. Most of the Guard kept their helmets on during the day, even here, deep in the Coruscant Guard complex where they rarely came across any natborns. They nodded as he passed them, and he knew exactly what each of them looked like behind their helmets anyway. 

Carrion couldn’t examine the body at the crime scene like he should have been able to. A dark, damp, and dirty alley down on level 306. There hadn't been a crime scene, not really, not officially. A crime scene implied a crime, and a crime implied that a law had been broken. There was no law that protected the Vode. A crime implied something of worth had been destroyed.

The Vode were worth nothing.

Well, not nothing. Not very much though. They were made to be expendable. That's why there were millions of others that shared his face.

_ If  _ there was going to be an investigation, and there wouldn't be, it would be into the destruction of Republic property and the loss of GAR resources. There would be no investigation into the brutal murder of a sentient being, because the Vode were not sentient beings.

There wouldn't be an investigation at all though, however much Fox might've wished otherwise. He didn't bother to wish for anything these days anyway.

The Coruscant Guard would not be allowed to investigate, citing conflict of interest or some shit. The Coruscant Security Force would not be bothered to investigate, citing that they were too busy. What they were too busy doing, Fox had never managed to figure out. The easy shit, pretty much.

The nasty shit, the Coruscant Guard took care of. Whether it was chasing criminals down to the lower levels, manning the prisons, or cleaning up crime scenes after the Coruscant Security Force idiots conducted their laughable investigations. Fox had never had any formal investigative training, but even he would do a better job than those idiots. Hell, even Grizzer would, and he spent ninety percent of his time licking his own balls or sleeping.

Actually, with how much the CSF seemed to enjoy kissing their own ass’s, self-felatio, and general laziness, Grizzer would fit right in with them.

Fox was the head of the Coruscant Guard. The Guard, unsurprisingly, guarded the Senate. They dealt with the senators, got injured protecting the senators, and died for the senators if that was what was needed. The Coruscant Guard were whatever the senators needed them to be.

The Coruscant Security Force got the credit for all of it.

Fox suspected that the only reason they were not part of the same body, which would make sense and make things so much easier, was because that would inevitably lead to a clone being in a role of seniority above a natborn, and Force forbid that ever happened. Force forbid, someone who actually knew what they were doing was in charge for once.

Theoretically, the Coruscant Security Force dealt with domestic matters and the Coruscant Guard dealt with military matters. However, with Coruscant being the home of the Senate, and central to the Republic, which was currently in an active war, everything seemed to be a military matter. The natborn Senate Guard was also being slowly replaced by the Coruscant Guard, for all but the Chancellor and some other self-important senators. Not that Fox’s ever-expanding list of responsibilities meant he could requisition additional troopers to actually get that work done.

Not that Fox could ever order an investigation and get the kid lying on that cold slab in the basement some fucking justice. Property didn't get justice. Property didn’t get to complain about workload, or the fact that it was used for things it wasn’t supposed to be used for, or the fact that it was considered property at all. Property didn’t get abused, just used incorrectly. Property didn’t get shit. That implied they could own something, and property can’t have property.

Fox thought back to that trooper on the cold slab who shared his face and reflected that of course they didn't even get to have that for themselves.

Fox keyed in the code to his office and slumped down behind his desk, removing his bucket and dropping it on the desk beside him. Carrion slumped into one of the chairs opposite and Fox couldn't summon the energy to tell him to fuck off when he put his boots on the desk. As was their tradition in these circumstances, Fox pulled a bottle of confiscated moonshine out of the bottom draw of his desk and poured a small amount into the bottom of two battered tin cups. He slid one over to the medic who threw it back in one go. Fox did the same, before pouring them each a second drink, much more generous this time around.

Carrion scrubbed a hand over his face. It wasn’t even nine in the morning yet and already they were both kriffing exhausted.

“Anything?” Fox asked, already knowing the answer.

“Nothing,” Carrion replied, staring down into his drink.

Fox wasn't surprised. There was never anything they could use. Well, there often was, but not things they were actually _allowed_ to use. Anything involving any level of investigation was covered by the CSF, so it wouldn't go anywhere. Fox was pretty sure that even if a trooper body were found next to a person wearing a t-shirt bearing the phrase 'I killed this clone' and covered in blood, shouting 'I did it, it was me', he wouldn't be allowed to act on it.

Not that he would ever get that lucky anyway.

Fox didn't get lucky.

Fox didn't get shit.

It was his personal motto.

He and Carrion kept a log of everything they found anyway. Fox always tried to make it to the crime scene (not crime scene) to have a brief look around, maybe take a few pictures. Nothing ever came of it apart from the growing datafile on his personal server, full of images of young troopers he’d never be able to get justice for.

Fox picked up his datapad and flicked through the personnel file that Carrion had forwarded him after scanning the troopers ID code. CT-5423, 212th battalion. He'd only been off Kamino for six months, shipped out aged only nine. His personnel file was depressingly full for such a short time. Fox had just turned ten when the war started, and now he was well past twelve.

Two years.

Two years seemed too small an amount of time for the Kaminoans to have to resort to sending out the nine-year-olds, but time moves differently for the Vode. Always too quick.

CT-5423 was the first of the 212th battalion to die on Coruscant, which meant Fox was going to have to have an awkward conversation with Marshall Commander Cody at some point within the next few hours. That was sure to be unpleasant. He'd had the conversation with Monnk, Grey, Appo and Neyo, often with Thorn, Stone or Thire there for moral support, but thankfully he'd managed to avoid having it with his own batch so far.

He'd known it wouldn't last. Fox didn't get lucky after all, none of them did.

He briefly debated just leaving it to Thorn or Stone and locking himself in his office to deal with his ever-growing backlog of paperwork, but he knew Cody well enough to know that he wouldn't want to hear it from anyone else but Fox.

At least, he used to.

Fox used to be very close to his batch but getting his posting had changed that forever. He'd worked so hard, got the best scores in all bar a few of their training units, and the best average, well above even the Marshal Commander himself. He'd been so proud, so excited to go off to war.

Then they'd told him that, as he'd proven himself to be the definitive best of them, he got to go to Coruscant to defend the heart of the Republic. 

He knew what his batch thought, of course. A cushy desk job protecting the senators. It's what he'd thought as well, at first. Then he'd quickly realised he'd been sent to war too, just a different one. A darker one. A war where he couldn't just point and shoot, where it wasn't back and white, good and bad. A war he fought with words and paperwork and more kaf than was medically safe according to Carrion.

When Fox had had that fun little realisation, he'd been viciously glad that it was him stuck here, fighting this fight. 

Not for himself, he hated every fucking minute of it. He was just glad that it wasn't any of his brothers walking the halls of the senate building. There was a small part of him, the part that had been so viciously proud as he beat his brothers in their final exams, thought that they could never have fought this war as well as he could anyway. Fox _earned_ his name, he was sly and he was smart. His brothers weren't being cruel when they called him that, like some thought they were, they were being _accurate_.

He loved them. He missed them.

He didn't get to have them.

Fox was pretty sure they hated him now anyway. He was the head of the military police, they were the military. The military were supposed to hate him, that's just how things were. It was okay, Fox was used to it. The Guard knew how the troopers in the GAR saw them, how their brothers saw them. They could never be bothered to correct them, not that they were given the chance. Battalions were loyal to their troopers, their commanders, their Generals. The Guard were loyal to themselves alone.

The GAR could look down on them all they liked, the Guard knew the truth.

It was easier, for Stone and Thorn and Thire. They had each other. Fox had them as well, to an extent, but he was above them too. He was their boss, and there were things he tried to shield them from. He couldn't protect them from everything, but he tried his best. He was close to Carrion, sort of. Close, in that they often drank together after a hard day. Sort of, in that they never actually said anything.

"You'll deal with the CO?" asked Carrion. 

Fox grunted in response.

Carrion finished his drink, sliding his empty cup back across the desk. The Chief Medical Officer nodded to Fox as he left the room. He might be heading back to the barracks, it was his monthly day off after all, but Fox suspected he would go down to the medical centre and stab a few unsuspecting troopers with unnecessary vaccines, or whatever it was Carrion did to cheer himself up. 

Fox finished his own drink and shoved the cups and the bottle back into the bottom draw of his desk. He still had about ten hours left on shift, so presumably he would be stuck here for another fourteen at the least. 

Cody will have gotten the notification about his trooper by now. 

Fox could go find something to do elsewhere if he really wanted. He could conduct a random inspection of the barracks, or the prison, or wherever else. He could go to the Senate where he would inevitably get embroiled in one thing or another, and he would be stuck there for the foreseeable. He could avoid Cody all together if he really wanted. 

Fox may not be the hero he had wanted to be when he was a cadet, but he sure as shit wasn't a coward either, so he resigned himself to a day of paperwork and other boring office stuff, topped off with what was bound to be an unpleasant discussion with his batchmate. One of the first things Fox had learned was that there was always more paperwork to be done, it never ended. It wouldn't be a wasted day if he waited here for a few hours until Cody arrived.

Fox had never wasted a day in his life, but then again, it hadn't been a particularly long one thus far.

He got stuck into the first stack of files, the ones marked urgent. They weren't, of course.

They were from the Chancellor's office, all ready for Fox to forge the wrinkly old bastard's signature on. It wasn't anything _too_ treasonous for him to lay eyes on of course, no bills to be signed into law or anything like that, just bureaucratic banthashit. It was still highly illegal for Fox to even see, let alone sign, but it wasn't as if he could say no to the kriffing Supreme Chancellor of the Republic. 

It wasn't as if Fox was able to say no to anything.

The work sent down from the Chancellor was one of those things he wouldn't allow Thorn, Stone or Thire to deal with. It was a burden he shouldered by himself, but some days it felt like the heaviest by far. He didn't know why he read the documents, it wasn't as if it mattered, but a voice in Fox's head would never let him sign anything without checking and then double-checking it. It didn't make any difference, Fox would have to sign it either way, because that's what the Chancellor had asked him to do.

Still. He read every one of them. He didn't like the picture they painted, but he could never figure out why.

Too many pieces of a puzzle he was putting together with his eyes closed and one hand behind his back.

He was just finishing up the last document when his com chirped. It was a message from the front desk. Marshall Commander Cody was headed down to the crematorium. Fox stared at the message. He wasn't sure why the fact Cody went to see the dead trooper without even comming Fox first stuck like that in his head, but it did. 

He stuck his (not his) signature on the last of the Chancellor's forms and stood, placing his bucket over his head again, before making his way back to the crematorium.

He found Cody standing over the trooper’s body, bucket under his arm, face open and emotional in a way you just didn't see in the Coruscant Guard. None of them would ever be that stupid, not where just anyone might be able to see them. It became so much of a habit for them, they kept it up even inside their own helmets. 

Cody didn't look up from staring at the trooper, didn't give any indication that he had noticed Fox enter the room. Fox didn't think Cody would have changed so much in the year since they'd last seen each other that the Marshall Commander wouldn't know exactly who, and where, he was.

Two years, since they hugged goodbye on Kamino.

Cody kept staring at the trooper’s face.

Fox wondered if it looked different, to the faces on the dead bodies scattered across the galaxy. 

He doubted it.

After a moment, Cody stepped back and nodded to the crematorium attendant. The trooper stepped forwards and covered the body once more. Once more, the body was stowed away, although this time for disposal now that the kid’s CO had come for his last visit.

Fox led the way out into the corridors, not bothering to check if Cody was behind him. Troopers parted to let them past, standing to attention as they passed. They weren't doing it for Fox, he hated it when they did it, but they acted differently in front of outsiders. 

Marshall Commander Cody was an outsider here.

Fox didn't think about it.

The head of the Coruscant Guard felt a strange sense of déjà vu as he keyed in his office code, once again going to sit behind his desk. Cody took the same chair as Carrion had, but he didn't put his boots on the desk.

Fox wouldn't have let him if he did.

Fox regarded the man across the table from him. Cody had a scar now, curving around his right temple. Fox remembered reading the after-action report, alone in his office so late at night it was well into the next day, gripping the datapad so hard he cracked the screen. 

Cody stared back at him, face unreadable.

Fox had never not been able to read his youngest batch mate before. He wondered if it was because the war had hardened his little brother even further than Kamino had, or because Fox simply didn't know him well enough anymore. It probably should have stung, to have such obvious evidence of his estrangement from his brothers right in front of him, but Fox didn't seem to feel much other than tired resignation and bitterness these days.

He took off his bucket and placed it on the desk beside him, slipping his gloves back off and dropping them down beside his helmet. Cody kept watching him.

"Kid have a name?" he said, more to fill the silence than any desire to actually know. He never found it helped either way.

"Check," said Cody. 

"Know him well?" 

"Not really." 

They lapsed into silence again. Fox sighed and dug out the moonshine and the cups again. He pushed one across the desk to Cody, who took it, looking sceptical. Fox sipped his own, gazing at the stack of completed datapads, and the even larger stack that still needed doing. That stuff he could load off to Stone or whoever if he didn't finish it in time. The completed stack he'd have to take up to the Chancellor's office personally, his least favourite job.

Cody took a sip of his drink and glanced at Fox, still unreadable.

"I wouldn't have thought you'd drink on duty," he murmured, "heard you're a stickler for rules these days."

Fox didn't bother to reply to that.

He wasn't stupid, he knew what they said about him. The brothers in the GAR said he was an emotionless robot, a pencil pusher, the 'droid of clones'. Newer brothers in the Guard called him those things too, when they read his list of rules of conduct, and their armour regulations, and how they should behave in certain situations. They laughed at him behind his back, those shinies, until they figured out why he had those rules.

They stopped laughing quickly after that.

He knew, each Clone Commander and Captain had their own rules about shinies. About when they stopped being shinies, specifically. Apparently, you're no longer a shiny in Commander Wolffe's eyes when you don't flinch if he smiles at you. Fox remembers exactly which smile they mean, the one with entirely too many teeth. He used to be able to do it too.

He doesn't see the point, anymore.

In his eyes, they're no longer shinies when they figure out why Commander Fox keeps his house so strictly in order. Why they have to keep their helmets on at all times, why they can't personalise their armour beyond an indication of rank and position, why they should never speak unless spoken to, why they have to be perfect.

They aren't shinies anymore, when they've figured out why the Coruscant Guard have to be beyond all reproach.

Fox has no idea when Cody considers his boys no longer shiny. It'll amount to about the same thing though. It's when the light in their eyes goes out, when the joy in them dies.

Fox didn't think that Kamino left any joy alive in any of them. 

Then he came to Coruscant, and he learnt better.

"What happens now?" Cody asked him.

"What do you mean?" Fox said, arching his eyebrow.

"I mean with the investigation, do you need to speak to his squad mates, find out if anyone knows where he went last night or…"

Cody trails off, staring at him. Fox couldn't begin to imagine what expression might be on (not) his face, but it probably isn't good.

"There's not going to be an investigation, Vod," he said, slowly.

Cody's face twisted in confusion, then anger.

"What do you mean there's not going to be an investigation?" he demanded, "that kid was beaten to death. He was murdered."

He spat the last word.

Fox blinked.

Okay, he knew the experiences of those in the GAR differed greatly from those in the Guard, but he didn't think they were that different. Cody had to know, right?

"No, he wasn't," Fox said, slowly.

"What?" said Cody, voice quiet and cold and dangerous. This was a part of him that had survived, a bit of the wicked smart and angry cadet that Fox remembered from Kamino.

"He wasn't murdered, Vod. You can't murder something that isn't sentient."

Cody looked at Fox like he hated him.

Fox was sort of glad he didn't feel things properly anymore, because he bet that would've hurt.

"What?" Cody asked through gritted teeth.

"At the most, you'd get an investigation into the unlawful destruction of GAR resources," Fox said, staring into the bottom of his drink. Some of the Guard red paint Thorn had put there, over a year ago now, was beginning to chip off the rim. "The Guard can't investigate it, due to potential conflicts of interest, and the Coruscant Security Force won't investigate it, because they don't find it worth their time."

Cody stared at him. Fox stared right back.

"Why aren't you angrier about this?" Cody asked him, all hurt and confusion. 'Why don't you care like you used to?' is what Fox heard.

It struck him then, that Cody thought that this was the first time this has happened. That Cody thinks this kind of thing is unusual. That Cody really doesn't know about what goes on in Coruscant's lower levels.

Fox watched as Cody had a similar revelation in reverse, that this is not in fact unusual for Fox, that this is not the first time that one of the Vode has died on Coruscant. Fox watched as Cody re-evaluated the situation.

Watched, as he re-evaluated Fox.

"Why don't you warn them?" Cody asked him, all bitter and angry.

Fox couldn't help it. He laughed.

He was on his- _shit-_ third moonshine of the day, and he'd only had a cup of kaf for breakfast before he got the com about the body, so he laughed. Cody's face went back to being blank and unreadable again, and Fox hated it. He kept laughing.

"I'm sorry," Fox said when he finally managed to stop laughing, "what did you think my rules were for? _Fun?_ " He downed the rest of his drink in one.

Cody stared at him.

"Look," he said, voice bitter and emotional and he hated this, "I'm sorry you lost your kid, I really am. Ain't shit you or I can do about it though, so why don't you go back to doing your job, and I'll go back to doing mine."

Cody kept looking at him. Fox wanted to punch him. Fox wanted to scream at him. Fox wanted to hug him.

Cody took another sip of his drink, still kriffing staring.

"Does this kind of thing happen a lot?" he asked quietly.

"Depends on what you mean by this kind of thing," Fox said, watching Cody's fucking sith-spit blank face and trying to maintain his own. "To the GAR? No. They're not on Coruscant enough." He looked down at his hands. There was a dark bruise over one of his knuckles, he couldn't remember what from.

"To the Guard? Yes."

Cody was still staring at him. Fox wasn't sure what made him keep talking.

"It's always the shinies who think they're invincible," he muttered, "who think they're above the rules."

Cody nodded slowly.

"Yeah," he said, voice a little hoarse, "that's usually how I lose them too."

Fox watched as his little brother finished the rest of his drink and stared down into his empty cup.

It wasn't the same, he wanted to say. That's a battlefield, this is the centre of the Republic, it's different. The truth is that it's not as different as it should be.

Fox's com chirped. He glanced down and bit back a curse.

"I have to go, the Chancellor has requested my presence," Fox said as he stood, shoving the bottle and his cup back into the draw. Cody held his own out, and Fox paused before taking it.

He hated that he didn't know why.

He replaced his gloves and helmet, and gathered the Chancellor's datapads into his arms. They weren't late, he knew that, so he had no idea why the Chancellor was requesting to see him, beyond nothing pleasant.

Fox held the door open for Cody, who was still watching him with that calculating stare. Like Fox was a puzzle that needed to be solved. 

Like he might still care.

Cody walked up to him, and for a moment Fox thought he was actually going to hug him. He couldn't help his flinch as Cody neared him.

Ugh. Fox was too drunk for this.

The Marshal Commander pulled up short, face still carefully blank.

"It was good to see you Fox," he murmured. 

Fox didn't reply.

Cody finally stopped looking at him and turned down the corridor and started to head towards the entrance of the Guard building. Fox watched him go, then turned on his heel to head towards the back entrance to the senate building.

It didn't matter, he told himself. Nothing about Fox actually mattered. Nothing he did or said. 

Nothing Fox felt mattered.

He wouldn't see Cody again for a long time anyway, if at all. His little brother, brilliant as he was, would probably die out on the battlefield and be immediately replaced by someone else with the same face. Fox wondered if Cody’s General would even notice, for all the devotion Cody gave to him.

Maybe, what with the scar and everything. It was pretty distinctive after all.

Fox gritted his teeth and hoped the long walk up the many stairs of the Senate building would sober him up as he marched past the elevators with determination.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fox: hah. feelings.  
> Fox:  
> Fox: be bad if I had those
> 
> The character of Carrion is lovingly stolen from spilled red wine by scrapheap_redux (https://archiveofourown.org/works/26016412/chapters/63258775).  
> I recommend you read it if you like crying yourself to sleep at night about how traumatised all the clone babies were.


	2. Lieutenant Commander Grizzer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fox surreptitiously changed the camera filter on his helmet so he could see what had caught Grizzer’s attention. A hooded figure appeared out of the gloom, partially concealed behind a building. The figure disappeared behind the building as soon as Fox spotted them, their cloak stirring up the heavy smog that clung to the ground and in every corner of this level.
> 
> Yeah, not suspicious at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not as happy with this one, purely for the fact that fighting is even harder to write than smut.
> 
> Enjoy the beginnings of a vague plot anyway.

Fox idly wondered if he could make the case for better air scrubbers in their buckets simply on the basis that the lower levels of Coruscant just smelled  _ that bad. _

Probably not.

Fox supposed that the smell might be due to the collapsed building in front of him, but he's been to this level before, and frankly the stench of brick dust and burning flesh was almost preferable to the usual prevailing scents of faeces and general decay.

He surveyed the scene in front of him. The Guard were there to determine whether the explosion that caused the building in front of him to collapse, crushing all of its occupants, was caused by Separatists, Separatist sympathisers, normal criminals, or if it was just an accident. Fox suspects that it's normal criminals doing normal criminal things, but that doesn't feed into the Chancellor's preferred narrative that all the Republic's problems are caused by the seppies, and that nothing, no not a thing, is actually due to the inherent inequalities that prevail in the Republic that are exploited daily by the fat wobbling walking turds that populate the Senate building. 

No one was going to ask Fox his opinion anyway. There would be a press conference later this afternoon, after he had made his report to the Chancellor, which the Chancellor would likely ignore. The Chancellor would plead for calm, whether he needed to or not and which always had the exact opposite effect anyway. Then, a reporter would inevitably ask about possible Separatist interference. The Chancellor would smile that sickly smile of his and say that 'while Separatist involvement has not been proven, we cannot dismiss the possibility'. The reporters would have a field day.

At no point would any of them actually trek down the levels to see for themselves. 

As far as Fox could tell, there was almost no Separatist activity on Coruscant. Suspiciously little, actually, discounting all the banthashit that went on in the senate building itself. How the Banking Clans were allowed to remain part of the Republic, whilst claiming neutrality, and openly funding both sides of the war, Fox has absolutely no fucking clue. And _don't_ get him started on the shit sticks in the Trade Federation.

But the point stands, there is little to no Separatist activity on Coruscant. 

If Fox were a Separatist, and of course he isn't, he supports the Republic wholeheartedly, he would try to provoke outrage on the lower and mid-levels by pointing towards the painfully obvious corruption and inequality within the Republic and start an uprising right beneath the Senate's feet. Of course, the hypothetical uprising would be mercilessly crushed by Fox and the Coruscant Guard, but no one was even _trying_. It's one of the many, many, things that don't make sense about the war. If Fox thinks about them too much, he feels sick and his head begins to hurt, so he drinks instead.

He's completely fine though, no matter what Stone, Thorn, Thire, Carrion and Hound say.

Fox watched as yet another body was pulled from the rubble and carried to the group of medics a short way back. They were trying to identify bodies and cause of death on site before the collection of corpses would be shipped straight off for disposal. Not like they had a morgue or anything like that after all. 

They'd stopped finding live ones hours ago.

This building had housed over a hundred people, about seventy of whom had been home at the time that the building had exploded in the early hours of this morning, when most of them had been asleep in their beds. They'd pulled twenty-three from the rubble still alive. Fox had already received reports that ten of those had died shortly after reaching the hospital, if not before. There were ten of the building's registered occupants yet to be accounted for, and were either wandering around Coruscant blissfully unaware, off planet, or waiting to be found. Hell, some of them could have been lying dead in Coruscant's sewers for months, even years. It's not like the records down here are up to date or anything approaching accurate.

Fox watched as one of the Guard zipped up a body bag around a young zabrak girl. Darla Bresch, eight and a half standard years. Not one of her family, her parents or her two younger brothers, had survived the explosion and resulting catastrophic collapse. 

In contrast to the troops' sour mood, Hound's sniffer dogs were having the time of their lives. Grizzer was seated happily at Fox's feet, lead attached to his belt. According to Hound, he needed a rest from all his hard work. Also according to Hound, Fox was Grizzer's favourite, and so he was currently on dog sitting duty. Why the damn thing likes him so much he has no fucking clue. He glanced down at the slobbering massiff, who blinked up at him hopefully. Fox scratched the damn things forehead and sighed, before turning and walking up to the head of the investigative team on site.

"Roe. Got anything?" 

"Yes Commander," the man handed over his datapad and stepped back, eyeing Grizzer warily. Fox perused the data while Roe kept talking. "The explosion does appear to have been deliberate, at least in part. We found large amounts of accelerant in this area here," he indicated on the datapad, "close to what appears to have been an old, abandoned munitions store." 

Fox nodded slowly. 

"So the initial fire was lit using an accelerant and then caused the munitions to explode," Fox said and Roe nodded, "but why do you think that the explosion was deliberate? The accelerant wasn't found in the same area as the munitions. Surely if it were deliberate, they would be directly on top of each other." 

"Yes Sir, but if we do a rough reconstruction," Roe tapped the datapad again to bring up another figure, "the majority of the accelerant was found up against what used to be the outer wall of the munitions store," he stepped back, "it'd be a hell of an unfortunate coincidence, Sir." 

Fox thought for a moment. He didn't believe in coincidences, unfortunate or otherwise.

"You're right," he said as he handed the datapad back to Roe, "you think someone made an attempt to cover their true intentions up?" 

"It's a poor attempt if they did Sir," Roe replied, "I think it's more likely that they knew the location of the munitions but couldn't get access to them." 

"I agree, good job Trooper." Fox dismissed the man with a quick nod, and made his way over to speak to Hound, Grizzer happily trotting beside him.

"Hey buddy, having fun with Foxy?" Hound greeted Grizzer. 

"Stop calling me that," Fox growled, but as usual he was completely ignored.

"Aw, Foxy is extra grumpy today huh? Yes, he is, _yes he is,_ " Hound started scruffing at Grizzer’s sides while the massiff wriggled in doggy happiness.

"I _will_ arrest you, I don't need a reason," Fox grouched.

Hound continued to ignore him in favour of greeting the dog. Fox had no idea how the man remained so cheerful in the face of everything, especially when his job here today was essentially to dig up dead bodies, but then most of the animal handling troopers were a bit odd like that, and Hound was their glorious leader. 

Whether Hound was the weirdest because he was their boss, or he was their boss because he was the weirdest, Fox had never figured out.

Sergeant Hound was also the only Guard who wasn't a Commander (or Carrion) who Fox would allow a little light-hearted insubordination from. He didn't really know why. It was probably because, what with Hound being head of the animal handling unit, he was usually nowhere near the senators or anyone else who could get him into trouble for that sort of thing. 

Also, it was just sort of hard not to when Hound put his animals before everything else.

Hound stood and finally gave his full attention to Fox.

"How's it going?" Fox asked. 

Hound hummed thoughtfully, casting his gaze over the other two massiffs that were currently darting back and forth across the rubble pile, Fluffy and Babs.

Fox should really have a word with Hound about appropriate names for his animals.

"Suspect we're nearly done. We've been finding less and less as time goes on, I wouldn't be surprised if that bloke we pulled out a few minutes ago was the last one." 

Fox nodded and blew out a sigh, tempted to take his helmet off and rub his forehead, but for the smell. He lay an idle hand on Grizzer’s head, who pressed into his thigh ecstatically, entire body quivering. Fox turned to Hound. 

"He needed a break?" he asked, suspicious. 

"Probably. This isn't really his job," Hound said, hand on his belt as he watched the other two animals work. 

"What?" Fox asked through gritted teeth. This was exactly Grizzer’s job. 

"Babs and Fluffy look for stationary targets, Grizzer hunts down moving targets," Hound explained. Fox blinked. 

"That's different?" 

"Very," said Hound and didn't elaborate further. 

Fox was about to ask why the hell he even brought Grizzer when the animal in question barked, staring off into the darkness. Fox froze. 

He glanced at Hound who had gone similarly tense. Fox surreptitiously changed the camera filter on his helmet so he could see what had caught Grizzer’s attention. A hooded figure appeared out of the gloom, partially concealed behind a building. The figure disappeared behind the building as soon as Fox spotted them, their cloak stirring up the heavy smog that clung to the ground and in every corner of this level. Yeah, not suspicious at all. Grizzer had excellent instincts. 

Hound unhooked Grizzer's lead from his collar and let it dangle down by Fox’s thigh.

"Grizzer, chase," he instructed, and Grizzer shot off into the darkness. Fox and Hound set off at a run being him as various surrounding troopers began to follow. Babs and Fluffy began to chase after their master, barking excitedly, but didn't seem to realise they should be chasing the suspect and not Hound. Maybe the Sergeant had a point about the massifs having different jobs.

"Suspect fleeing the scene," Fox shouted into his com as he and Hound chased after Grizzer, "Fox and Hound in pursuit. Suspect appears humanoid, wearing a dark hooded cloak. be advised, massiffs are also in pursuit."

Fox grunted as they rounded a sharp corner and they spilled onto a main concourse, civilians screaming as the hooded figure and snarling beast charged down the street.

"Suspect is moving north along route eighteen on level three-two-three. All available units should move to cut them off," he shouted into his com.

Fox dodged through the various bodies along the walkway, all of them too busy picking themselves up or staring after Grizzer and the cloaked figure to notice Fox and his troops coming up behind them. 

"Move it," he shouted, too worried about catching the mystery figure to feel bad about screaming at the panicking civilians. 

It worked anyway. 

Now that the concourse was clearing Fox was slowly gaining on Grizzer and the suspect. Grizzer was running full out, muscles rippling as he neared the hooded figure. Whoever it was, they were lightning fast, but Grizzer was faster and Fox estimated that the mystery person would be on the floor with fifty kilos of barely restrained predator pinning them down in the next thirty seconds.

Fox swore as the figure twisted, still moving, and raised a blaster. Luckily, whoever it was only fired at stun blast. Unluckily, it hit Grizzer as he was mid leap and the massiff slammed into the duracrete floor of the concourse, unmoving. Hound, who had somehow managed to keep pace with Fox in all the chaos, made a noise not unlike the snarl of one of his precious animals. Fox couldn't do more than spare a glance as he passed Grizzer, but he was dimly aware of Hound's familiar presence dropping away from his back to look after his charge. Babs and Fluffy stayed with their master, not used to tracking moving targets and completely bewildered.

Grizzer would be fine, Fox told himself firmly as he ran, pushing himself to go faster. The hulking beast could survive a lousy stun shot. 

Fox pushed even harder, running full pelt after the hooded figure. It was easier now that the walkway, extruding out of the side of towering buildings and into one of the large gaps that spanned between the levels, was mostly clear of pedestrians. He could hear the familiar clatter of trooper armour behind him, so he knew that some of the Guard were still with him. 

His stomach dropped as the hooded figure vaulted the railings and flew across the yawning chasm, towards another walkway that was half a level below and built into the other side of the gap. Fox couldn't hear anything beyond his own pulse in his ears and his heart in his throat, and time seemed to slow down as the figure flew through the air, their cloak flapping behind them.

The suspect landed with a roll and kept on running. 

Fox was beginning to suspect they were fucking assassin droid or some shit. There were very few organic humanoid species that he could think off that were able to move this fast, to jump that far, that weren't the products of kaminoan gene engineering.

Fox grit his teeth and put that engineering to the test.

While the suspect had managed to get further away from Fox and the guard, the lower concourse was much more populated, largely with civilians who had come to see what all the shouting and screaming was about. It slowed them down significantly, especially as they chose to dodge around the civilians instead of throwing them out of the way. Soon Fox was almost directly above the hooded figure, who raised their arm and fired at him without even looking. Fox ducked a couple stun blasts then vaulted the railings, praying that none of his men were stupid enough to follow him. 

Time slowed again as he flew across the open space towards the lower concourse. The hooded figure turned towards him, and even though Fox couldn't see their face he could feel the surprise radiating off them.

He crashed into the hooded figure and they slammed into the duracrete. Civilians scattered, screaming.

They rolled a few times, but Fox managed to come out on top of the hooded figure, pressing them face down into the dirty floor. With a burst of inhuman strength, the figure slammed an elbow into the side of Fox's bucket and stars burst behind his eyes. The hooded figure threw him off and rolled away, coming up in a crouch. The man's blaster scattered across the pavement (great), along with Fox's (not so great).

The hood had fallen back during the scuffle, and Fox could make out their face for the first time since they caught Grizzer's attention back by the collapsed building. They appeared to be human male, though the golden yellow tattoos across his face identified him as a Kiffar, a near human species. His hair was in dreadlocks, pulled back from his face and secured in a ponytail. The man grinned at Fox with a mouth full of scarlet blood. 

"Well, I wasn't expecting that," he drawled, eyes alight.

Fox lunged.

The Kiffar met him halfway, quicker than Fox could blink, and they began to scrap. Fox's blows didn't seem to bother him, even though several of them drew blood. The man punched him hard enough to crack his armor, which Fox was pretty sure was not something a Kiffar should be able to do. He must be enhanced, cybernetics perhaps. Fox drew his other blaster and almost had him, before it was knocked out of his hands. 

They were pretty evenly matched, and neither of them could gain any ground. Fox found it increasingly infuriating. The Kiffar man seemed to find it hilarious. 

He kept laughing, which just served to add to Fox's frustration.

"Listen, Sweetheart," the man panted between twists and punched and kicks, "I really ain't done nothing wrong." 

Fox didn't bother to reply. He knew when he was being goaded, it wouldn't work. He thought back to Darla Bresh's face as the body bag was pulled around her and pressed forward with burning rage. He managed to punch the man in the stomach before he was thrown to the floor, the Kiffar pinning him with an arm across his throat. 

"You're really good at this," the strange man laughed, and Fox swore at him bitterly, before twisting and bending at the waist so that he could get a leg around the Kiffar's throat. He pushed down the smug feeling that rose up at the look of surprise on the Kiffar's face and rolled forward so that he was on top with a knee in the other man's chest. Fox couldn't keep him pinned for long though, and after a bit more wrestling on the duracrete floor the Kiffar somehow managed to get both of his thighs around Fox's neck. He squeezed so hard that Fox's bucket popped right off. 

Fox slammed the back of his head into the other man's balls as hard as he could manage. 

That stopped him laughing. 

He threw Fox to the side, cursing. Fox rolled onto his front and they came up face to face. They were both tensed, ready to spring, when something in the other man's eyes flickered. 

"Listen, sweet cheeks," the Kiffar said, standing slowly, "I'd love to stay and play, but I gotta get moving."

Fox could hear sirens rapidly approaching, and he scrambled to his feet again. 

"Night night gorgeous." 

Fox saw the barrel of a blaster, _and when the hell had he picked that up_ , and then everything went black. 

\----

Fox woke up in the medbay. At least, he was pretty sure it was the medbay, since his view was obscured by the curtains drawn around his cot. The ceiling was familiar, he remembered that water stain, and it sure as hell smelled like the medbay. He cracked his neck and turned his head to better gauge his surroundings.

Hound was sitting in a chair beside him, leaning back with his feet up on the bed by Fox's knees. He was frowning at a datapad, fingers skittering across the screen. Fox exhaled slowly.

They didn't even _have_ chairs in the medbay. 

"You had three broken ribs and fractured three of your knuckles," Hound murmured without looking at him, "Carrion's had you in bacta two days, longer than you really needed but he was worried."

Fox grunted and shuffled back up the bed to rest against the headboard, yawning. He wasn't wearing anything, but he could see his armour stacked up at the other end of the bed with his helmet on top. He'd need some blacks, but they kept plenty spare in the medbay, since usually they had to be cut off.

"How's Grizzer," Fox asked, scratching at the few days' growth of stubble on his chin.

" _Will someone get this fucking thing out of my medbay_ ," Carrion screeched in the background. Grizzer barked.

"He's fine," said Hound, still not looking up from his datapad, "I shouldn't have let you go off on your own." 

"It's fine," Fox told him, "you didn't know what was going to happen." 

"It's not fine, I panicked," Hound said firmly, placing the datapad down on his lap and fixing Fox with a look.

"It wasn't your fault. If it was a trooper you'd stopped to help, we wouldn't be having this conversation," Fox said, nonplussed. 

"It wasn't a trooper," Hound said, "it was an animal, I shouldn't have-" 

"Hound," Fox cut in, "it was Grizzer. He _is_ a trooper. It's okay." 

"I broke protocol-" 

"Not really," Fox held up a hand to silence Hound's protests, "and the fact I will be promoting Grizzer to the rank of Lieutenant Commander to oversee the running of the animal handling unit is solely due to his outstanding bravery, and absolutely nothing to do with the fact that you're a fucking moron and I hate you." 

Hound stared at him a moment, then chuckled, his shoulders relaxing against the plastoid chair. 

"No one ever believes me that you're funnier when you're sober," he said, sinking further back into the chair in a lazy slouch and resting the datapad on his thighs with a lazy grin.

"Just the way I like it," Fox said, cracking his neck. "Seriously though, vod'ika, shit happens. Don't worry about it." 

Hound grinned at him, all teeth, before sobering. 

"Reminded everyone you were mortal, freaked us all out a bit," he said, looking at Fox seriously. Fox scowled at him and Hound rolled his eyes. 

"Oh, you know what I mean. No one's ever seen you lose a fight before." 

It's true, Fox hasn't lost a fight with anyone since Kamino. He doesn't quite know how he feels about losing this one. He should probably be more upset about it, but right now he's better rested than he's been in about a year and doesn't really care that he got his ass handed to him by some bastard Kiffar.

Fox should look up his face tattoo to figure out his clan affiliations.

The sound of claws clicking against linoleum reached his ears and Grizzer's head appeared through the curtains, quickly followed by the rest of him, wriggling in excitement. He placed his head on the bed by Fox's hip, looking up at him imploringly. Fox sighed and started scratching him between the eyes, and the beast rumbled happily and closed it's eyes in pleasure.

Carrion threw back the curtains, looking deranged. 

"You," he growled, glaring at Hound. Hound smiled back at him, all mock innocence and butter-wouldn't-melt. Fox didn't buy it for a second. 

They stared at each other for a long moment, before Fox cleared his throat. 

"Oh good," Carrion turned his glare on Fox, who found he regretted everything instantly, "you're awake." Then Carrion smacked his shins with his datapad. 

"What did I do?" Fox demanded, wincing.

"You broke three ribs, you karking idiot." 

"That wasn't my fault!"

"Oh yeah?" 

Carrion fixed Fox with a look that maybe, once upon a time, would have inspired fear in him. Not anymore of course.

"Then whose fault was it when you jumped onto a suspect from half a gods damned level above them?" asked Carrion, voice smooth as silk and downright terrifying.

Oh shit.

How did he know?

Either someone tattled on him, or…

"That's right ori'vod," Hound said, leaning forward and expression gleeful, "there's surveillance footage."

Fox groaned and fell back against the pillows, cursing the day he slid out of his growth tube. 

"There's not a vod in the Guard who hasn't seen it," Hound continued happily.

Carrion was smiling like a serial killer. 

At least Grizzer still treated him with the proper respect, thought Fox as he continued to scratch the animal in question between the eyes.

Grizzer burped with excitement and stuck his cold wet nose against Fox's bare side. Fox was very brave and absolutely didn't squeak, no matter what Hound says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH WHO COULD THAT POSSIBLY BE? WHAT MYSTERY. 
> 
> I have based the character of Grizzer on my dog, who also burps when she gets excited. Unfortunately, she lives with my parents and I have not seen her in over six months. I miss that fluffy bastard, so I expect Grizzer will crop up a few times in the fic. 
> 
> I have a loose layout for the rest of the fic so hopefully I will continue to update semi regularly. I love to read your comments they give me joyyyyyyy.


	3. Thorn can get Fucked

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Of course, the senate has and always will respect your desire to remain neutral in this war, however…" 
> 
> Fox let the Senators' voices fade into the background as he surveyed the conference hall they were in. Stone had initially been scheduled to take this assignment, but the di'kut had got himself lightly shot chasing a perp down in the lower levels and now Fox was here instead. Thorn had said it would basically be a vacation. Especially after the whole bullshit with that bastard Kiffar who knocked Fox on his ass, Thorn had added with an unrepentant grin.
> 
> Thorn could get fucked as far as Fox was concerned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is this the beginning of an arc I see? Yes, Yes it is.

"Of course, the senate has and always will respect your desire to remain neutral in this war, however…" 

Fox let the Senators' voices fade into the background as he surveyed the conference hall they were in. Stone had initially been scheduled to take this assignment, but the di'kut had got himself lightly shot chasing a perp down in the lower levels and now Fox was here instead. Thorn had said it would basically be a vacation. Especially after the whole bullshit with that bastard Kiffar who knocked Fox on his ass, Thorn had added with an unrepentant grin.

Thorn could get fucked as far as Fox was concerned.

Being off Coruscant, being out of the loop, was making Fox twitchy. It wasn't that he didn't trust Thorn and Thire to handle things while he was gone, but he didn't really trust anyone other than himself. He hadn't been able to, for the longest time. Fox didn't like relying on other people, it wasn't their fault, he just hated things being not in his control. 

It meant he didn't get much sleep anymore, but beggars can't be choosers, and the oceans of Kamino would freeze solid before Fox begged anyone for anything.

The assignment in question was to escort three Senators to a so-called goodwill conference with a group of neutral systems. The three Senators Fox was currently in charge of, Organa, Amidala and Chuchi, were all very vocal about their desire to end the war and as such had been invited to discuss their efforts by a group of similarly minded neutral delegates. So, Fox was here on a planet he had genuinely forgotten the name of, with a platoon of eight of his best guard troopers, two per Senator, plus two to guard the ship.

He hadn't slept the night before departing, writing and rewriting security plans and fall backs and reading intelligence and checking the guest list. He also hadn't managed to bag time to sleep on the way over, but that was fine. He'd gone without sleep for a full week once before he'd collapsed in an empty hallway of a senate building. Luckily, it was a Guard who found him and had thought to drag him into a maintenance closet before comming the medics for assistance.

In theory, he was supposed to coordinate the security efforts, liaise with the local security forces, stand back at the edges of the room, and generally keep an eye out. In reality, he was sticking by Senator Riyo Chuchi at the behest of the two older Senators. Before they had left their transport early this morning, they had quietly pulled him aside and requested he remain by the young woman's side for the duration of the conference.

Young woman. Hah.

She was basically a tubie.

Organa had said he worried that her youth would make her a target. Amidala had implied that she had many unpleasant experiences as a senior politician at Chuchi's age. Organa had looked slightly ill at the implication.

Fox wasn't surprised in the slightest.

Fox tuned back into the conversation in case he needed to be worried. 

"-cannot deny that the Republic is rife with corruption." 

"Senator Reneth, I do agree with you that the Republic is troubled but the Senate-"

Poor kid. 

She had no idea. 

Fox was well aware of the corruption that existed within the Republic, as were most of the Coruscant Guard and theoretically it was their job to expose it. However, they were also aware that most of the corruption stemmed directly from the senate building, if not the Chancellor's office itself, which complicated things. Fox surmised that the Coruscant Guard's actual function was to stop the corruption that didn't directly benefit anyone in the Senate. On occasion, the sneaky back dealing Senators would get too overconfident and forget they were supposed to be keeping it all secret and at least pretend not to be karking sleemos. When the few Senators who actually gave a kriff noticed, then (and only then) the Chancellor would request Fox put a stop to it.

Not that he ever got to arrest a Senator, but he would make some noise and some pointed comments during his so-called investigation, and the culprits would slink back into their lairs. Occasionally, there would be a scapegoat put forward, some poor aide that had fallen out of favour, but more often than not Fox would be told to back off by the Chancellor once the fuss had died down.

The three Senators Fox was currently guarding weren't corrupt, as far as he knew. If they were, they were much cleverer about it than most of the Senators the Guard dealt with, not that that was hard. Organa and Chuchi were squeaky clean. Amidala did have that one secret, but it was fairly benign as secrets go, especially for a Senator.

Plus, the security footage of her and Skywalker attempting to be sneaky was often entertaining, if he had enough time to watch it before he deleted it from the public servers. The time she had shoved him into an ornamental shrub when they had been surprised by a cleaning droid was Fox's favourite. You could still see Skywalker's booted feet poking out of the foliage, as a flustered Amidala addressed a mouse droid as 'Senator'.

Maybe it was the last of the hope left alive in Fox that had decided, tentatively, that these three were genuine. That they were, potentially, good. There were other Senators, about a hundred out of a few thousand, that he had also added to his 'not bad' list.

Fox had many lists, some physical, some just existing in his head. Most of those lists were about Senators, which Senators preferred to deal with the Senate Guard, which Senators preferred that the Clones use their chosen names, which Senators preferred to use their serial numbers. 

Which Senators just called them all Clone.

Which Senators the shinies shouldn't be allowed near because they would use the smallest slip up to have them decommissioned.

Which Senators no vod should ever be left alone with.

The 'not bad' Senator list was upsettingly short, and Fox didn't hold out much hope for ever starting a 'good' Senator list. It would be depressing, but Fox had long since lost the capacity to feel depressed about anything.

Fox surveyed the large event hall. Organa and Amidala, along with their Guard escorts and Amidala's two handmaidens, were at the far end of the room to Fox and Senator Chuchi. The ballroom that this portion of the conference was taking place in was long and thin, with doors at both ends. The compound was built into a towering cliff face and one side of the room had windows that looked out onto Toydaria's (Toydaria, they were on Toydaria, Fox suddenly remembered) emerald green jungles far below them, the other swathed in purple and gold sort of flag things. Fox didn't know what the proper name for them was, but they were hung from the roof and lent the room the pretentious, self-important air of grandeur that Senators seemed to enjoy.

The windows on the opposing wall were floor to ceiling, and while Fox appreciated the clear lines of sight to what was happening outdoors, he hated that it went both ways. Happily, unlike the blasted senate building, the windows were interspaced with thick stone columns. Fox supposed the golden shafts of evening light that resulted from this might be considered attractive, if you were into that sort of thing.

He was still half-heartedly considering the tactical merits, or lack thereof, of senate architecture when the windows exploded inwards.

The concussive blast threw Fox to the floor and pushed all the air from his lungs. He landed on his back and rolled with the impact, coming up in a crouch, his ears ringing and one of his blasters in his hand. Ed and Pipes, the troopers assigned to Chuchi, were also already up and moving. Pipes positioned himself between Chuchi and the windows while Ed checked the Senator for damage.

Fox remained partially crouched as he surveyed the room, looking for Organa and Amidala. He could make out two red Guard helmets at the far end of the room, poking up slightly from above the fallen delegates and destroyed floral arrangements. He was just about to com them and issue orders to get back to their ship when the shooting started.

_ Vacation his left bollock _ . As soon as Fox got back to Coruscant he was going to punch Thorn in the face.

He moved into position besides Pipes, blaster raised, but he couldn't see anything to actually shoot at from this angle. Fox hit his com and cursed.

"They're jamming coms," he shouted over the screams, "back to the transport, now!" 

Potts, Game, Ris and Vita knew protocol like the back of their hands, all his men did. They'd all memorised the layout of the compound before the mission and they knew what to do and where to go in any given situation. They were positioned closer to the landing pad so hopefully Fox and his group would catch up with them if something went wrong.

They'd be fine, Fox told himself firmly.

Ed helped the young Senator up and placed her between him and the door, hand on her shoulder and his body between hers and the direction of the blaster fire. He started pushing her towards the doors and Fox and Pipes began to back out the room behind them. B1 droids began to climb in through the shattered windows as they cleared the room.

Seems like the seppies were upset they didn't get an invite. 

Fox turned and ran, keeping the other three in front of him. Other delegates and Senators were running alongside them, screaming and panicking and generally shitting the bed. A part of Fox noted the uselessness of the other security teams with smug satisfaction. 

Ed pushed Chuchi at a hard right, and they began to make their way back around towards the landing pad. The quickest way would have been to charge through the ballroom or whatever, but unfortunately that route was peppered with blaster fire, so they were making a loop. Not too long that they would take too long to get back to the transport, but not so short that they were within range of the ballroom. The route Ed was taking was the exact same route Fox would have chosen, and the little part of Fox that had noted the uselessness of the other security teams also purred in pride at his own men's professionality. 

Fox moved up the group a bit, positioning himself between the other three and where he mentally estimated the clankers to be. As they came up to the exit that would take them outside and towards the landing pad another explosion shook the compound. Fox moved to take the lead.

They were in the service corridors now so there were no windows set into the doors, so Fox couldn't see what was going on outside. Ed pushed Chuchi flat against the wall and placed himself between her and the door, Pipes in front of him. Fox mirrored them on the other side and hit the security pad beside the door. They slid open, and immediately bolts of light began flying through the door. Fox and Pipes immediately moved into position and returned fire, partially shielded by the doorframe. Quickly, the troop of twelve or so droids were down. They were shit at shooting and absolutely never ducked. As always, their strength was in their numbers. 

Fox and his troops' strength was in being  _ better _ .

Now that they were outside, they were closer to the transport but much more exposed for it. Fox led the way, keeping low and tight to the sides of the structures they passed. Blaster fire was everywhere now, as security details and Toydarian guards fired back at the clankers. It was pointless, Fox knew, but he didn't bother telling them. A lot of the Guard’s additional training revolved around knowing when to stand and fight, and when to get the fuck out of there. The Senators were always their first priority, the survival of the Senators mattered more than anything else, even getting a few good shots at the clanker bastards in. 

The Kaminoans and Prime's trainers had taught them to always stand and fight, and Fox spent a lot of time training that back out of his men. They weren't GAR troopers, they couldn't afford to die with glory out on the battlefield, they had jobs to do. 

Still, he doesn't hold it against Ed when he goes down, a stray blaster bolt through the side of his helmet. They were crouched behind some crates, so close to the landing pads Fox could almost taste it. The crates were between them and the separatist forces, so Fox knew without having to look that the bolt came from supposed friendly fire. 

Chuchi screamed. 

Pipes pushed her forwards, taking his batchers place at her back, placing himself between her and the panicking neutral forces. There would be time for him to mourn later. 

Fox grabbed Chuchi's trembling hand and placed it on his pauldron. 

"Don't let go," he shouted. 

She was crying.

He turned back around and placed his hand over hers on his shoulder, squeezing briefly to remind her to keep it there. He watched, waited, and then he moved, firing all the way. 

He didn't miss a single shot.

Ed's body stayed crumpled against the containers behind them.

Pipes used his grip on Chuchi's own shoulder to position them in a staggered way, where he was partially between her and the neutral forces, if that's what you could call that bunch of idiots, and Fox was partially between her and the Separatists. It wasn't ideal, but it's better than nothing. 

Thankfully, the fighting diminished the further they moved away from the main compound. Their transport was at the furthest end of the port which meant it was taking much longer than Fox would've liked, but it hopefully meant that they wouldn't be disturbed as they took off.

As they neared the ship, Fox was able to make out a group of clankers gathered around the lowered ramp, two dead troopers by their feet, Chips and Tabby. He cursed under his breath and brought them to a standstill behind a large freighter. 

Fox didn't know how to describe the feeling that trickled down his spine as he watched General Grievous himself walk down the ramp, but it definitely wasn't pleasant.

He held his breath as Grievous talked to his droids, but he couldn't make out a word they were saying. Suddenly Grievous grabbed the tactical droid around the neck and threw it into the side of the ship.

"Find them," Grievous screeched. 

Well, that was potentially good.

It meant that the others hadn't been captured or confirmed dead, which was a positive.

On the other hand, it meant that General Grievous was here, on this neutral planet, probably with the specific purpose of capturing the prominent Republic Senators who Fox was tasked with keeping alive and whole until they returned to Coruscant. That was definitely a negative.

Fox recalculated quickly.

The security plan he'd outlined before the trip stated that in this situation, any survivors should head towards the evacuation point that Fox had carefully selected, about an hour’s trek from here at trooper pace, probably longer with the Senator. Fox had definitely missed a check in by now, so the Guard offices would be alerted to something going wrong, so hopefully the GAR would already be on their way.

Hopefully, but not likely.

Fox happened to know that the closest ships were a day away and entrenched in heavy fighting, so backup would have to come from at least two days away, or possibly even Coruscant itself. He knew because he’d checked before he left. The evac point would be included in the security plans that should be forwarded to whoever was dispatched to pick them up, but there was no way they could stay there for what could potentially be days with a droid battalion searching for them.

He nodded to Pipes who turned, silently guiding Chuchi to grab the back of his belt this time. They'd head to the evac point, where hopefully they would find the others. If nothing else went wrong, and they weren't on the ship, that's where they would be. Then, they would get moving. Annoyingly, Fox hadn't thought to plan for being specifically targeted or hunted down by the seppies, so he would have to pray that whoever came to find them could track their com units and hope beyond all hope that the clankers couldn't.

He turned to follow the other two away from the landing platform and down into the jungle, moving quickly to catch up with them. For the first time he noted the shrapnel damage and a large blaster burn across Chuchi's bare and trembling shoulders. Thankfully, it had just skimmed her, but Fox knew exactly how much those kinds of injuries hurt.

"Hold," he whispered, pulling a bacta spray out of his tool belt. 

There wasn't much he could do for the shrapnel, too much risk of the bacta sealing debris inside of the wounds, but the blaster burn he could help with, and it would only take seconds.

Chuci gasped as he applied the bacta, then turned to face him as he stuffed the little spray bottle back into his belt. 

"Thank you, Commander," she whispered. 

"Just doing my job Senator," he replied, “now let's move."

\----

The trek through the jungle was humid and unpleasant, but they made good time to the extraction point. Chuchi was obviously beginning to tire, but she kept going with a determined look on her face. It was pretty impressive for a Senator, especially one so small and fragile looking. Pipes was in the lead, Chuchi still hanging onto his belt while Fox brought up the rear. Every now and again he would turn and scan behind them, but the clankers were nowhere to be seen. 

It wasn't exactly making him anxious, Fox wasn't sure he could get anxious anymore, just different shades of irritated and tired. He was getting increasingly uncomfortable though.

Fox didn't get lucky, Fox didn't get shit.

The fact that they were currently experiencing such favour from the Force just meant they were gonna get severely fucked over later, in Fox's (not inconsiderable) experience of getting fucked over.

Just when they neared the extraction point, Pipes pulled up short and held up the hold sign. They ducked down as something rustled up ahead of them. Fox raised his blaster and cautiously moved in front of Chuchi and Pipes, when a familiar red and white helmet poked out from behind a tree.

"Great to see you alive Senator, Commander," said Vita. The Sergeant had completed ARC training before being randomly assigned to the Guard. He was the ideal choice to send back and find them. Fox let himself relax slightly.

His men were the best, they were prepared for any situation, he'd made sure of it.

"Vita, sit rep," he ordered as they started moving again, following Vita this time. 

"The Senators are alive and waiting a short distance from the evacuation point. I thought it best to stay out of the open," Vita said.

"Good job," Fox said, "but we should keep moving, Grievous is here searching for the Senators." 

"Of fucking course," grumbled Vita, and Chuchi laughed. At least, Fox thought it was supposed to be a laugh, but it ended up sounding like a choked off sob.

Soon they came upon the others. The Senators were fine, a little scratched up but mostly healthy, resting on a fallen tree trunk. They were down one of the handmaidens and a trooper. Potts, Fox thought. He hadn't known the name of the Handmaiden, from what he understood their anonymity was part of their weaponry. They were pretty interesting, the Handmaidens of Naboo. Fox would have liked to ask them about their philosophy, maybe train with them, swap techniques. He would never be able to, of course.

They were people, he was not.

"Riyo," Amidala said, standing. The younger woman almost fell into her arms, shoulders shaking. 

"Commander Fox, Pipes," Organa said, "I'm glad to see you both alive. What is our plan?" 

Another reason Fox liked Organa. He wasn't obviously corrupt, and he always went straight to the point. He was actually pretty terrible at being a politician.

"General Grievous appears to be here searching for you specifically, Senators. Republic assistance is at least a day and a half away. Our best bet is to keep moving, we'll stand less chance of being found."

Organa and Amidala exchanged a glance. 

"Grievous is here?" asked Amidala, voice heavy with trepidation. 

"We assumed that the Separatists were here for us when we saw them board the ship," said Organa uneasily, "but General Grievous…"

The silence hung heavy over their little group.

“It’s certainly not ideal,” Fox said wryly, causing Organa’s lips to twitch. “Hence why we need to keep moving. Republic forces will be able to track our com units and find us when they get here.”

“And Grievous cannot?” asked Chuchi from where she was being comforted by Amidala.

“Only if he somehow has our com codes,” said Ris darkly.

“Which I’m sure they don't,” Fox said in response to Chuchi’s alarmed face, “We’d already be dead if they did.”

She didn't look very comforted. In fact, she looked terrified and exhausted. Irritatingly, the droids had attacked before lunch, so the kid was probably starving too. Luckily, Amidala and Organa seemed to be holding up a little better.

“Alright,” said Fox, “we’ll get moving in ten minutes to allow Senator Chuchi time to rest.” Amidala nodded and stood to confer with her remaining handmaiden, while Organa dropped onto the tree trunk beside Chuchi and wrapped a comforting arm around her.

Fox wracked his brains for everything he knew about Pantorans and Toydarian Jungles. Pantora, where Senator Chuchi hailed from, was predominantly a marshy planet whereas Toyaria was jungles, swamps and mountains, so she shouldn't suffer any more than the humans in these conditions. If anything, the humans would struggle more than she would, unused to Toydaria’s oppressive humidity. None of them had any water, and no food beyond the emergency rations and energy gels stuffed into the trooper's belts, unless Amidala was hiding something under that skirt of hers.

This was going to absolutely suck, even if Fox’s plan did work and they managed to stay ahead of the clankers, which he doubted they would manage. The terrain might help them out a little, they would have a much easier time moving through the dense forests than any B1, B2 and droideka units. That wouldn't count for much against assassin droids and Grievous himself though. In the end, Fox suspected that it would come down to whoever's energy ran out first, and things didn't look great for Team Republic. He dug around in his belt again. 

“Here,” he said, holding out an energy gel to Chuchi, “it doesn't taste great, but it will help.”

The kid took the gel with a nod. Organa smiled at him. 

One of the troopers made a choking noise.

Fox whirled around with a hand on his blaster, to see the trooper in question, Game, didn't have a hand on his blaster, and followed his gaze. 

Fox made his own choking noise. 

"Senator, what are you-" he sputtered, unsure whether to look away or watch… whatever was happening. 

Amidala kept stripping out of her dress, her handmaiden assisting with the ridiculous layers and laces and whatever.

"Well, this dress is hardly ideal for a trek through heavy jungle, Commander," she said, still kriffing stripping.

"Yes but-"

Fox blinked.

The thick fabric fell away and revealed a sleek, dark grey undershirt. When the underskirt fell away it revealed black leggings, and a blaster strapped to each thigh. Nice blasters too.

_ Very _ nice blasters.

Fox was so confused. Even more so when she stepped out of the fabric pooled around her feet and Fox made out the hilt of a knife poking out of her sensible boots. The handmaiden stripped out of her much more modest robes into an identical outfit, before shoving their discarded clothes into one of the half-rotted tree trunks.

Fox couldn't figure out how to say 'what the fuck is happening right now' without getting himself decommissioned so he settled on silence. Amidala grinned at him.

"I was fourteen when the trade federation invaded my planet," she explained, checking her blasters expertly, "it was terrifying, and I was powerless to stop them. Afterwards, I began training with my handmaidens at the suggestion of a mind healer."

"Do you always have your blasters on you?" Fox asked. As head of Senate security, he should probably know.

"Not when I'm in the senate buildings, but always when I travel off planet," she answered matter-of-factly.

Fox decided he wouldn't ask about the knife strapped to her ankle, for deniability purposes.

Organa stood and shucked off his heavy outer robes before shoving them into the tree with Amidala's things. Thankfully for Fox's sanity he wasn't also hiding a blaster beneath his cloak, only a dark blue belted tunic. Luckily for her, the Pantoran formal outfit Chuchi was wearing was a loose pair of trousers and flowing tunic top. Unfortunately, her footwear were some fancy slipper-like shoes that barely covered her feet and offered no ankle support. At least they were flat, Fox supposed.

Fox turned and called up a map of the area on his wrist computer, thinking. If the clothes were found it could clue the droids into their location, so instead of heading on in the straight line that they had walked from the compound, they should divert by about sixty degrees from their current course, he reckoned. A small enough diversion to keep them moving steadily away from the compound, but enough to hopefully put Grievous off the scent. That path had the added benefit of taking them further up into the mountains and onto the high ground.

Fox relayed the plan to his men, then turned to face the Senators again. Chuchi stood between Organa and Amidala, a determined look on her young face, made all the younger by the large bruise developing on her cheek.

"Okay," he said, "let's move out."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think it's clear I don't understand anything about military tactics and personal protection, other than they are probably a bit different.
> 
> I hope you enjoy it anyway?


	4. As usual, things get worse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chuchi stumbled in front of him and cried out, hitting the deck hard. 
> 
> Shit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have an important presentation to prepare for work, so of course I am doing this instead.
> 
> the anxiety is strong with this one (me)
> 
> Please enjoy!

Fox bit back his frustration as he looked at the slumped backs of the Senators. It wasn't their fault, he knew, they'd been going for hours now, hiking through the dense jungle. For the troopers it wasn't an issue, they were engineered for this. The Senators weren't by any measure. While Amidala and her handmaiden had lasted better than Organa and Chuchi, the effort was beginning to show on their tired faces. Add to that the fact that night was falling, and the Senators weren't equipped with helmets that would enable them to see, and Fox was…  _ concerned. _

He'd sent Vita ahead to flex his ARC training and hopefully find somewhere for them to shelter overnight, just for a few hours. They'd been steadily climbing since mid-afternoon, when the sun had been high in the sky. The nights on Toydaria were still oppressively warm and humid, and dried sweat clung to every inch of Fox's body. The jungle was beginning to thin, which made it slightly easier for the Senators to see but left them all much more exposed. Fox hoped that Vita would find a nice deep cave for them all to hide in, and soon.

Chuchi stumbled in front of him and cried out, hitting the deck hard. 

_ Shit. _

She'd caught her ankle in a root because she could barely see where she was going, and she was wearing  _ fucking slippers, he'd fucking known this would happen. _ Fox wasn't the best field medic, he’d be the first to admit it, but the way her foot was pointing to the side while her shin pointed upwards probably meant her ankle was broken. 

Fox cursed under his breath as he knelt to examine the twisted limb. This just kept getting better and better, the force of the sarcasm blistering in his own mind. Amidala was crouched beside Chuchi's head, shushing her pained cries and stroking her hair, Organa beside them, his usually warm face pale. The handmaiden knelt beside Fox, and gently lifted Chuchi's leg. The baby Senator whimpered.

"We're going to need to reset this," the handmaiden murmured, brow creased. 

"I have a limited med kit," Fox said, "bandages, bacta spray, a sling." 

"We can't use bacta," the handmaiden said, frowning. "We need to splint it." 

"Game, Pipes, stand guard. Ris, go find a few branches suitable for a splint. One for the Senator to bite down on as well," Fox ordered. He dug into his tiny medikit, a single pouch on his belt, and pulled out the bandages and the sling. 

"Sabé," said Amidala, face drawn, "what's happening?" 

"We're going to reset and splint the ankle," the handmaiden replied, voice tense. Sabé must be her name, good to know, much better than calling her 'handmaiden'.

"Do we have any pain relief?" asked Organa, frowning up at Fox and Sabé.

"No. And we can't use bacta in case the bones fuse incorrectly," Fox explained. What little colour remained in Chuchi's face drained, until her face was the colour of ice. Fox didn't blame her. This was going to be a  _ bitch. _

Ris returned, Vita right behind him, a few straight branches held in their arms. They piled them beside Sabé and moved back again, Ris to stand guard with Game and Pipes, and Vita to crouch next to Fox and murmur in his ears. 

"I found somewhere to shelter for the night," he said, "bout an hour's from here if we continue at the same pace as before." 

Fox grunted and held out a thicker branch to Chuchi. 

"You should bite down on this," he said. She nodded tentatively, tears shining in her eyes. Poor kid, thought Fox. She was too shiny for this. She grabbed the offered branch firmly, shoving it between her teeth, the decisiveness of her actions at odds with the fear in her eyes. Fox really was in danger of actually liking this one.

"Commander Fox, if you wouldn't mind holding her leg in place," Sabé said quietly, calmly. Fox nodded and placed his hands over Chuchi's shin, and she swallowed a whimper. Amidala and Organa sat beside her head, each of them holding a hand between their own. Fox nodded at Sabe, who wrapped her fingers around Chuchi's foot and gave it a sharp tug down. The branch between the Senator's teeth splintered as she let out a muffled scream.

She didn't move though, and Fox gently supported her leg to allow the Handmaiden to splint it, using the bandages to cushion it against the rough branches. Sabé worked quickly to wrap the last bandage around the broken ankle and secure the splint, and carefully removed the shoe before it became an issue with the swelling. Fox helped her hold the branches steady while she finished securing the splint with the triangle bandages. Chuchi whimpered and trembled while Organa held her hand and stroked her hair. Amidala leaned forwards and pressed a kiss to the poor kid's forehead, resting her own there and whispering comfort. It reminded Fox of sharing a keldabe kiss with his batchmates after some particularly shit training back on Kamino, exhausted and shaking.

"Done," said the handmaiden, rocking back to sit on her heels.

Chuchi spat out the remains of the branch and gasped brokenly. 

"We need to keep moving," Fox said, "there's a place to rest about an hour from here." 

Chuchi sobbed. 

"But Riyo can't walk," protested Organa angrily.

"I'll carry her, Sir," said Fox.

"He's right Bail, we can't stay here," muttered Amidala, stroking Chuchi's hair. Her face was drawn and exhausted as she comforted the younger woman.

Organa sighed and scrubbed tiredly at his face, before he and Amidala stepped back to allow Fox to carefully gather the youngest Senator into his arms, mindful of her ankle. She was shaking badly, and Fox was worried about her going into shock.

There wouldn't be much they could do for something like that, none of them had water and the Guard emergency rations were famously dry. The most they had were energy gels and the stimulants in those could make things much worse.

"Okay," he said once he was confident of his grip on the Senator, "Vita take point, then Senator Organa, then me and Senator Chuchi, then Pipes, then Senator Amidala, then Ris, then Ms Sabé, then Game.” He paused for breath, thinking. “Senators, we have night vision built into our helmets so if you try to stick close to the trooper in front of you, you should have a much better chance of not tripping over anything." 

Organa and Amidala nodded tiredly, and the group shuffled into the order Fox had described.

"One more hour and then you can rest Senators, let's go," Vita said as he set out at a slightly slower pace than before, presumably to prevent another mishap, or maybe because Organa looked about ready to drop.

As they walked, the trees began to thin out further and the moon lit their way, so Fox wasn’t as concerned about anyone else falling. Unfortunately, the slope began to get steeper and steeper as they moved from the foothills and into the mountains proper, and their pace suffered for it. Fox tried his best to keep from jostling Chuchi's foot, but as the ground became steeper and the terrain rocky, he had to shift her onto his back with the help of Pipes, to keep from falling over himself. While the new arrangement made it easier for him to walk, it also meant Chuchi's injured foot would knock on the side of his armour from time to time and she would whimper. 

Fox was pretty impressed by the Senators. If this had happened with any of the other entitled pricks in the Senate it could've gone a lot worse. Organa, while clearly suffering, kept going without a complaint. Amidala and her handmaiden seemed pretty tough, and while they were faring better than Organa they were clearly tiring too, had been before Chuchi had her accident, and Fox knew that that kind of thing would take it out of the civvies.

Seeing someone in that much pain for the first time was sickening. Fox remembered the first time he had seen it. They were about five years old and Gree had broken his arm falling from the top bunk. Fox would never forget his screams, face paler than Fox had ever seen on a vod. A live one anyway. Alpha-17 had come and swept him up, carried him away, with a shouted instruction to stay put and not do anything stupid.

They could still hear him screaming and crying after the doors had slid closed behind them.

Chuchi herself was most impressive, he thought privately. She was a  _ child _ , had witnessed death for probably the first time today, was exhausted and in agony and yet the only complaint she made was the occasional whimper or bitten back sob when her broken ankle was jostled. Fox reflected that had she been a vod, she would definitely lose her shiny status after this osik, which made something uncomfortable uncurl in his gut.

She was a kid, and a good one at that, one of the most decent Senators there was. He didn't even think she should  _ be _ a Senator. There were  _ hundreds _ of beings in the senate building that Fox didn't think should be in the same  _ hemisphere _ as a young woman like her. He had noticed that some of the less objectionable Senators were very protective of her, especially Amidala and Organa, Mothma and the Rodian representative too. Presumably, they had the same thoughts as him.

Fox hitched Chuchi a little higher on his back and she pressed her forehead on his pauldron with a small cry as her ankle was jostled. 

"Sorry Senator," he muttered, guilt curdling his stomach. 

"Not your fault," she mumbled, "I shouldn't have fallen over." 

"Not your fault either Senator, these things happen," Pipes said from behind them. There was a dead quality to his voice, and Fox made a mental note to check in with him privately later.

"But did it have to happen  _ today _ ? Of all days?" she joked weakly, and Fox smiled beneath his helmet.

"In my experience Senator, the worst time for things to happen is usually exactly when they do," he said. 

Organa laughed. 

"I'd accuse you of being a pessimist Commander," he said, voice warm with mirth even through his exhaustion, "but I have found much the same thing." 

"Gods, you're both so fucking depressing," said Amidala grumpily, causing Ris to bite out a laugh and Fox to blink. Amidala just kept coming up with surprises today.

"Padmé, don't fucking swear in front Riyo," Organa replied, and Chuchi giggled wetly against Fox's shoulder.

They lapsed into silence again, and soon Vita led them into a cave. He flicked on the light on his helmet once they were far enough inside that the moonlight couldn't reach them, and the light wouldn't be able to be seen from outside. Thankfully, the floor was dry, and it didn't seem too cold or damp. 

Ris helped Chuchi down from Fox's back and she stood on her good foot, hand resting on Ris's arm for balance. Fox didn't like the way her leg trembled beneath her. Organa slid down the cave wall and rested his elbows on his knees, groaning, while Amidala and Sabé checked on Chuchi.

"Game, Pipes, you two take first watch," Fox instructed, "make sure you eat one of your emergency rations. Vita and Ris, once you've eaten, get some sleep. I'll look after the Senators and let you know when it's time to switch." 

Pipes and Game immediately moved toward the cave entrance, as Vita and Ris removed their helmets. Fox turned his helmet light on before he removed it, placing it on the floor beside him to light the cave. It was strange to not wear it in front of the Senators, uncomfortable even, but he knew he needed to eat too. It would also mean Vita could turn his helmet light off and get some sleep. Amidala and Sabé helped Chuchi sit down while Organa continued to catch his breath. 

"Okay," Fox said, looking at the Senators and the Handmaiden, "you're going to have to eat some emergency rations. They don't taste good and they won't really fill you up, but they'll keep you going." He dug around in another of his many belt pouches and produced a few individually wrapped emergency ration cubes. Tiny little bricks of highly dense nutrition. Incredible nutritional science really, but absolutely disgusting.

"Troopers need to consume about double the number of calories that baseline humans do, but I'd eat the whole thing anyway. You'll need it," Fox said. It came out darker than he had intended.

He handed one to each of the Senators and Sabé, each of whom looked at it dubiously. 

"It's tiny," said Organa as he unwrapped his and rolled the dense nutrition cube between his fingers, nose wrinkling at the strange chalky texture. 

"It's everything you need to function condensed down as small as possible Senator," replied Fox, "means we can carry two days of food in one pocket." 

"Force that tastes bad," muttered Amidala as she forced her down.

"My mouth has never been so dry," muttered Sabé. Amidala laughed at Organa's expression as he swallowed his own portion.

Chuchi ate hers without complaint 

"Sorry Ma'am, I should've warned you not to chew too much," Fox apologised, shifting away from the Senators to look around for things he could use to make them more comfortable and coming up blank. After a moment's consideration he removed his kama, hoping the padded synth leather would act as a half decent pillow. He knew it wouldn't, but it was better than a rock, which was his other option. Amidala and Sabé fussed over Chuchi, the handmaiden checking her foot for nerve damage and ensuring she could still move her toes, while Amidala stroked Chuchi's hair. Organa took the kama with a grateful glance before folding it into a pillow which he tucked behind Chuchi's head. 

Someone touched Fox's shoulder and he looked up to see Vita, who shoved a few emergency rations into Fox's hands. Fox looked up at him curiously.

"Don't give them all your food Ori'vod," Vita whispered, "I always carry extras anyway." 

"Me too," Fox murmured back, "you're not the only one with ARC training,” Force, that sounded petulant, “go the fuck to sleep." 

Vita snorted. 

"Sir, Yes Sir." he muttered, smirking, and wandered back towards Ris, who was already lying down on his side with his back to Fox and the Senators. He’d lain down between the Senator’s and the cave entrance, Fox noted with approval. All the troopers were well practiced in sleeping in their armour, the GAR and Coruscant Guard alike. Honestly, it would be more annoying that Fox  _ wouldn't _ be able to sleep in his helmet as they were using it for a light source, but it wasn't like he planned on sleeping anyway.

"If you're alright Senators, I'd like to go check on the troopers," said Fox, once they'd finished chewing their nutrition cubes.

"Of course, Commander," said Amidala, with a smile that didn't reach her eyes.

"If I might," added Fox hesitantly, "you should stretch your muscles, otherwise you'll just wake up in more pain tomorrow morning." 

"He's right, I can show you how," murmured Sabé. 

Organa groaned in protest. 

"I could not possibly be in  _ more _ pain," he complained. The two women looked at him, then down to Chuchi's bound ankle, then back up at him. Organa rolled his eyes and pouted. 

"You know what I mean," he grumbled. 

"Alright then, I'll be back soon," Fox said, trading a nod with Ms Sabé as she began to lead Amidala and Organa through a simple stretching exercise. He made his way to the mouth of the cave, where he spotted Game crouched by the entrance. Fox dropped down next to him silently. 

"Sir," the trooper greeted. 

"Game. Status report."

"No sign of the clankers Sir, Pipes has picked a spot a little further up the mountain to get a better view, but nothing from him either. The interhelmet com system seems to be working, so we've been able to keep in contact."

Thank Force for that.

"Okay, I'll have the other two relieve you in a few hours, I'm going to check on Pipes," Fox muttered, shifting his weight to creep up towards the other trooper.

"Sir, Ed was-" 

"His batchmate. I know. That's why I'm going to check on him." 

"How'd he die?" 

Fox sighed, closed his eyes and breathed through the sudden rage that choked up his throat. 

"Some idiot in the neutral forces who can't kriffing shoot in a straight line," he managed to grit out after a few moments. He hadn't had time to really think about it, before, but poor Ed. Kid didn't deserve to go down like that.

Game swore viciously under his breath. 

"How did Potts go?" Fox asked quietly after a moment's silence. 

"He was bringing up the back and the clankers got him in the chest a few times. He kept fighting as long as he could, Sir." 

Fox breathed out slowly. That was Guard code for 'kept shooting even as he was bleeding out', because they always did their duty, no matter how much it hurt.

"We got to the transport just in time to see Chips and Tabby go down and then we booked it for the evac point," Game continued quietly.

Fox rested a hand on the trooper's shoulder before creeping towards Pipes. It was a little more difficult to see without his helmet, but the moon lit up the night well enough, even if it was with an eery green tinge. He found Pipes easily enough, positioned between two boulders to keep him concealed.

"Trooper," he greeted quietly. 

"Commander," replied Pipes, not turning away from watching the jungle.

"Everything okay?" Fox asked quietly. 

"Nothing to report, Sir," he responded, voice tight. 

"Pipes," Fox sighed, "Are you alright?"

"Not-" Pipes choked, "Not really Sir. I can do my job though, if that's what you're asking." 

"I'm not," Fox replied, and he wasn't lying. All his troopers knew how to compartmentalise and keep going, how to save their breakdowns for a more convenient time. They had to, or they wouldn't survive Kamino, let alone Coruscant. He trusted them all to do what they had to do, even if he hated that they had to do it at all.

Fox remained crouched behind Pipes in silence, giving it a few moments. 

"It's just like him, Sir, to do anything to get out of doing work," Pipes whispered, choking up towards the end. He ducked his head briefly before bringing it back up to watch the treeline. Fox reached out and rested his hand on the troopers back, hoping he would feel it through his armour shell. 

"We won't hold it against him," Fox replied quietly, rubbing the younger man’s shoulder. "I think we've all felt the urge, at one point or another."

Fox knew he had.

Pipes laughed wetly.

"I can't- I can't afford to-" he stopped, breath coming raggedly through his vocoder. Fox knew what he was trying to say.

"It's okay trooper, we'll have plenty of time to grieve later." Fox said, aiming for comforting but probably just coming off constipated. The 'if we survive' part of the sentence went unsaid. "But for now, we have a job to do… If you'd prefer, you can go watch the Senators and I'll remain here." 

Pipes shook his head. 

"If it's alright with you sir, I'd like to be alone for a bit." 

Fox nodded. 

"That's fine. I'll send the others to relieve you in a few hours," Fox said, before patting Pipes on the back one last time and turning back the way he came. He nodded to Game as he passed, creeping into the cave they had found, noting with satisfaction that the light within couldn't be seen from outside. Good, they'd be harder to find.

He straightened up as he moved further into the cave, stumbling awkwardly as the moonlight faded, his helmet not yet close enough to provide any light. He made it back to the Senators without incident though. Chuchi was resting with her head on Amidala's stomach, her leg propped up between two rocks to stop it from touching the ground. Amidala herself was resting on her back with her head on Fox's kama, Sabé beside her. Organa was already asleep, propped up in a seated position against the cave wall. Fox debated moving him, but eventually decided that the man needed his sleep, and it would be best not to wake him. 

Ris and Vita were asleep too, probably had been from the moment they lay down. Trooper training had its benefits, one of which being the ability to sleep anywhere, instantly, no matter how uncomfortable or ridiculous the situation. Again, it was something they learned on Kamino and perfected on Coruscant. The Guard knew to take rest wherever they could get it, and presumably that extended to the GAR.

Fox settled down against the wall opposite Organa and the rest of the Senators and blew air out through his nose. He checked the chrono function on his wrist com and decided to make the first watch three hours, then another three hours watch, and then they really should get moving again. Fox contemplated cleaning his blasters, but he didn't want to disassemble them when he might need them at any moment, so he settled for staring at the ceiling instead, running through scenarios as he ate his rations. 

Truthfully, he was pretty sure they wouldn't survive this.

At some point tomorrow the clankers, likely with commando droids, would catch up with them. Fox didn't actually know how much charge a commando droid could hold, but he would bet his left arm that it was more than the Senators could. The com units they were wearing only worked locally without the interplanetary relays they carried on the ships, as long as they weren't being jammed. Without access to their own transport there had been no way to get a message to anyone within the Guard or the GAR about their situation. That was why they had the scheduled check in system, but Fox would've liked some form of communication.

So, hopefully, help was on the way, but Fox had no way of knowing when it would get here. Maybe when they reached orbit, assuming there wasn't a Separatist blockade in place, they would be able to reach him. Until then, he was in the dark, and the only thing that was left for them to do was keep moving.

Hiding wasn't an option, too much chance of them being found. Even being in this cave was making him uneasy. If somehow the clankers surprised Game and Pipes, they'd be trapped.

In that situation, the Senators would likely be taken alive. The rest of them certainly wouldn't be.

He was glad that none of the Senators had realised that, or if they had, that they hadn't mentioned it. Too many times Senators had used his men as literal meat shields, or agreed to be taken into custody without asking for their guards to be taken with them. Far easier to kill the clones than keep them alive and healthy, and as non-sentients no galactic laws prevented that from happening.

His musings were interrupted by Senator Chuchi swallowing a sob. She smothered her mouth with a trembling hand and glanced up at Amidala, who was still very much asleep. She hadn't noticed him.

"Are you alright Senator?" Fox asked, keeping his voice quiet and calm. She clearly wasn't, but even he wasn't so dead inside that he'd sit and listen to a fifteen-year-old girl cry, and he had no better ideas of how to start a conversation. 

"Commander Fox," she whispered, "can I- would I be able to sit beside you?" 

Fox couldn't think of a reason she shouldn't, other than why would she want to do that, so he nodded. Before he could move, Chuchi levered herself up carefully onto her elbows. Amidala made a small sound as she lost contact with Chuchi but remained asleep, rolling onto her side and snuggling into the warmth of her handmaiden. When Amidala didn't wake up, Chuchi leaned forward and started trying to balance her weight on her good foot, and Fox decided to put a stop to that bullshit immediately. He scooped her into his arms again and gently lifted her, before placing her with her back against the wall where he had been sitting moments earlier. 

He moved to support her broken ankle, and she bit back a whimper while he propped it up on a slightly-less-jagged-than-the-others rock. Then, because he wasn't sure what else to do, he sat down beside her.

"Thank you," she whispered to him. 

"It's no trouble, Senator. How are you feeling?" he murmured back, still somewhat wrongfooted by the exchange. Wrongfooted by this whole damn ordeal. 

"I feel-," she hesitated, "-my ankle is throbbing so badly I feel like I might throw-up, my head is aching and even though I'm beyond exhausted I'm unable to sleep, because I am terrified. So, all in all, Commander Fox, I would say I am not feeling very good." 

Fox bit back a smile at her matter of fact, measured, Senatorial tone. Kid was funny.

"I know it doesn't seem like it," he said, "but it's actually a good thing your ankle hurts so much. It means there isn't any nerve damage, which is much harder to heal than a simple broken ankle." 

Chuchi breathed out slowly and tipped her head back against the wall, looking at the shadows his helmet light cast on the ceiling. 

"I know," she replied after a brief moment, "and I have been checking periodically to make sure I can still move my toes. However, the knowledge that it could be worse is not helping me as much as I think it should."

"I think you're coping admirably Senator," Fox said, which was true. He would have said it anyway, but it was nice to actually  _ believe _ the things he said.

"I wouldn't have to cope at all if I hadn't fallen over," she grumbled, slipping from implacable Senator to upset teenager in the blink of an eye. 

"Senator," Fox said, smiling slightly, "about a minute before you tripped, I was thinking to myself that it was getting too dark for you to see without helmets and that someone was going to get hurt. It's not your fault at all, these things happen." 

Chuchi wiped her eyes with her hand. 

"I still wish it hadn't," she whispered, staring blankly ahead of her. They lapsed into awkward silence for a few moments before Chuchi spoke again.

"Do you think we'll survive this?" she asked, and Fox sighed.

"I think that there is a chance," he said, honest again, and she laughed quietly. 

"There's a Senator's answer if I ever heard one," she mumbled, a bitter smile on her lips.  _ Force, _ she was just a  _ child, _ she shouldn't have to look like that, she wasn’t a  _ trooper _ for crying out loud.

"Look, Senator Chuchi," Fox said, trying to pick his words carefully, "I do think that the chances of the Separatist forces not catching up with us are slim, however if they do, you and the other Senators will be taken alive and properly cared for. Even Count Dooku respects the laws surrounding fair treatment of prisoners."

At least, Fox hoped he did.

"But you won't," she said quietly, breaking the silence once more.

"Won't what?" 

"Be taken alive." 

And there it was.

"Probably not," he agreed carefully, "but that's just part of the job ma'am."

"And I went and made it harder by getting myself hurt, and now you might die because of me," she whispered, fresh tears rolling down her cheeks.

Fox shifted uncomfortably. 

"Look, Senator," he said, "if I do die tomorrow, it'll be because of the Separatists, not because of anything you did. You are  _ not _ at fault here.” He racked his brains for something to say. “Besides, it's what we were made for." 

"That really doesn't make me feel better Commander," she said, still crying. Fox began to panic a bit.

"Sorry," he said, "I'm not used to- I don't know how to- ah Kriff."

He pulled out the small cloth he usually used to clean his blasters and offered it to her. Chuchi took it and wiped her eyes.

"Apologies, Commander Fox," she said once she had calmed herself down a bit, to Fox’s relief. 

"Senator Chuchi, there is really nothing to apologise for," he said gruffly, "I've been told my bedside manner is… lacking." 

She giggled wetly, and to Fox's surprise and low-key horror, leaned against his side. 

"Can you just talk? To keep my mind off the pain?" she said, sounding exhausted. When Fox didn't immediately reply, she sat up straight again, eyes wide. "If you don't want to, that fine- I-" 

"It's okay Senator," he said, fumbling for words, "you just surprised me is all. I don't really know what you'd like me to talk about." 

Cautiously she leaned back against his side, head resting on his pauldron. 

"Anything,” she said tiredly. “If you have any stories about the troopers that would be interesting, I don't know much about you," she added when he didn’t say anything.

Fox racked his brains. Most of his stories about Kamino probably weren't child friendly, despite him being a child himself, in the most technical sense of the word. He briefly debated telling her about how Wolffe got his name but decided against that too.

He didn't feel like he had a right to those stories anymore.

He vaguely remembered someone telling him that natborn kids liked animals, so he started telling the Senator a story where Grizzer caught a scent and Hound didn’t unclip his lead in time, and found himself dragged across two Coruscant districts. That in turn lead into a story about his terrifying medic, Carrion, and that into a few different stories about the most idiotic and amusing ways troopers had got themselves injured whilst not on duty.

The more he talked, the heavier her weight against his pauldron was. Eventually her eyes fluttered closed one last time and Fox was left with a sleeping child Senator sprawled against his side. She looked kind of adorable, he had to admit.

_ Kriffing shitting karking fucking balls _ , he'd gone and gotten  _ attached _ to the kid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fox is just as much a Mandalorian as the rest of the CC nutcases, so you cannot tell me that he didn't see Chuchi walk into the senate and immediately go "who let this baby in here", and started to awkwardly parent her, even if he didn't realise it.
> 
> A second important plot point: Bail Organa has a dad bod and gives the best cuddles. I will be taking no further questions.


	5. Commando Droid: 1, Fox's Ribs: 0

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ris hopped up onto a rock and pulled out his binocs, scanning the jungle. Ris would've done well with ARC training, Fox reflected. Many of his troopers would have benefited from it actually, but that sort of thing wasn't available to the Guard. There was Vita and a few others who had completed the training on Kamino before being assigned to the Guard and shipping out. Himself, Stone, Thorn, and Thire had all undergone the unique torture experience that was ARC training when they were still just normal command class clones. Maybe, if they got back alive, he would talk to the others about setting up some extra training back on Coruscant if these kinds of things were going to keep happening.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again I am working on this fic instead of my actual work.  
> Please enjoy!!!

Fox hitched Chuchi higher up his back and checked the time on his chrono. It was mid-afternoon, and they'd been walking all day with only a brief stop for lunch, if that's what you could call a cube of compacted macronutrients. He called for a short rest, before carefully placing Chuchi down on a rock to give his back a break.

The previous night he'd had the troopers on watch change over after three hours, although with Chuchi using him as a pillow he'd had to throw a stone at Vita to get him to wake up. It hadn't been ideal, especially with Vita quietly laughing at him as he was trapped beneath the baby Senator. When Pipes and Game had trekked in from the outside, they'd had much the same reaction, but had settled down to sleep quickly enough. After another three hours Fox had woken everyone up and passed energy gels around the exhausted Senators. They'd set off as soon as the sun had risen enough to see by.

He and Vita had shared the Chuchi carrying duties, switching over every hour or so, at Vita's insistence. The Sergeant had stated that as they had both had heightened endurance as part of the ARC training, he should share in carrying the Senator. They had a much better chance if Fox wasn't completely exhausted, which he wasn't, he was fine. Vita was technically correct anyway, so Fox couldn't argue back without having to explain why he thought it was better to have one completely exhausted Commander instead of a fairly tired Commander and slightly worn-out ARC trooper.

Fox had been mildly disgruntled to find that Vita was yet another trooper who didn't respect Fox's blanket authority and made a mental note that he should never be in the presence of Hound and Vita at the same time. It was probably already too late to stop them from meeting, sadly. Maybe that was where Vita got it from. Fox would tell him to cut that shit out, but for the fact he still wasn't confident about getting out of this alive. He was pretty sure the Senators didn't mind the blatant insubordination anyway, seemed to enjoy it in fact.

Fox debated taking one of his energy gels, but he was still mostly okay, and he'd had the emergency rations at lunch, so he decided to leave it.

Ris hopped up onto a rock and pulled out his binocs, scanning the jungle. Ris would've done well with ARC training, Fox reflected. Many of his troopers would have benefited from it actually, but that sort of thing wasn't available to the Guard. There was Vita and a few others who had completed the training on Kamino before being assigned to the Guard and shipping out. Himself, Stone, Thorn, and Thire had all undergone the unique torture experience that was ARC training when they were still just normal command class clones. Maybe, if they got back alive, he would talk to the others about setting up some extra training back on Coruscant if these kinds of things were going to keep happening. 

He suspected they were.

The war had been going for a year already and showed no signs of stopping or slowing. If anything, it was picking up speed. It was certainly getting more vicious, especially as the Separatists had recently taken up the policy of randomly invading neutral planets. It wasn't a strategy that really made sense, especially as the whole point of the war was for the Confederacy of Independent Systems to break free of the Republic, and yet when they invaded neutral planets they invariably went to the Republic for aid, thus strengthening the Republic even further. Either Dooku was stupid, or something else was going on, as far as Fox could tell. Thinking about it made him feel ill though, so he didn't. What right did he, a lowly clone, have to question the nature of the war that was the reason for his very existence? 

Well, he had no rights at all, which he supposed answered his own question.

"Sir," Ris called from his position up on the rock, "you should see this." 

Well, that didn't sound good. 

Fox climbed up next to him and took the binocs, following Ris's finger to see… General Grievous. And a full company of B1 battle droids. Heading in their direction. 

_Fan-fucking-tastic._

The droids were moving only slightly above a normal walking pace, conserving energy Fox supposed. Still, it was faster than Fox and his charges were currently capable of moving, and by a fair margin at that. He swore. 

"Commander Fox?" asked Amidala tentatively. 

"We need to move out, _now_. Pick up the pace." 

Ris helped Chuchi climb up on Fox's back and they started moving again, Vita in the lead once more. The ARC trooper set a much more punishing pace, for the natborns at least. The Kaminoan gene manipulation meant that the clones could keep going for much longer at this pace, quicker even, but that would leave them all exhausted. Fox really didn't want to engage with fucking General Grievous when he was both physically _and_ mentally exhausted.

Fox had three energy gels left, and he used the helmet coms to ask the others about their supplies. Thankfully, there were enough for all the troopers to have one, and the Senators and Sabé as well. Hopefully, that would help them keep up the pace for a few hours more. 

While before they had been chatting quietly, now they moved in tense silence. Organa, Amidala and Sabé all wore matching expressions of grim determination. He couldn't see Chuchi's face, resting against his shoulder. Fox prayed to all the little gods he didn't believe in that someone came for them. While they wouldn't be harmed, the Senators probably wouldn't enjoy their imprisonment, and Fox quite liked them after this.

He didn't think he was that bothered about dying, might be a nice rest, but the troopers…

 _His_ troopers.

They deserved more. He couldn't save Ed or Potts or Chips or Tabby, but he would fight to his very last breath to keep Ris, Vita, Pipes and Game from marching on just yet. He didn't even know what would happen to Sabé. She wasn't a Senator, but she wasn't a lowly clone either. 

He thought briefly of his conversation with Chuchi last night, and realised that if he did die, the kid would probably blame herself. That seemed wrong.

So, maybe Fox didn't particularly care whether he lived or died, but he'd have a much better chance of keeping the others alive if he survived. Chuchi was a _shiny,_ and Fox would try his damn hardest to keep her that way, like he did with all his troops. He didn't have a chance with them, simply by nature of their birth, or rather the lack of it. He might have a chance with Chuchi though.

Fucking _hell_ , he was so attached to the baby Senator. That was going to come back and bite him, he just knew it. 

While they hiked, Fox mentally ran through the different scenarios. They weren't going to be able to outrun the clankers, that much he knew. Their best hope was just to last as long as possible, it always had been. Unfortunately, now that meant lasting as long as possible in what would inevitably be a shootout, and quite possibly a lightsaber battle with a psychotic cyborg. Not that they even _had_ lightsabers, or any means of defence against them, so it would be a bit of a one-sided lightsaber battle.

A decapitation really.

Close quarters combat would be the death of them, with Grievous especially, so it would be best to engage them a distance. _That_ meant Fox would have to find a good spot to stop and begin shooting, a place where they could dictate the battle. Better to find a good defensible position than be caught out in the open. He relayed this to the other troopers through the intercom system in their helmets, deciding it would be best to keep the natborns focused on moving and not worrying about being shot at just yet.

Of course, because Fox was there and Fox had the _worst luck out of any pathetic creature he'd had the misfortune to meet,_ they didn't get the chance to find a nice defensible position. Blaster shots began to fly over their heads much sooner than he'd hoped, and well before they got into a nice safe spot. Could be worse though. Fox grabbed Organa and dragged him behind the nearest boulder, of which there were thankfully many. He deposited Chuchi beside Organa and looked for the others. He couldn't see Pipes or Vita, but Ris had dragged Amidala behind another conveniently placed rock. Fox could also make out Sabé and Game crouched behind a different rock.

He took a calming breath and poked his head around the boulder. Thankfully, he could see Pipes a little further down the trail they'd been following, if you could even call it that. He signed that he was unhurt, and Fox turned his attention to the oncoming droids. They were still quite far away, further than he could confidently shoot with his blasters. Certainly further than the droids could aim, seeing as they couldn't even hit a spaceport door from ten paces. So it seemed Grievous had instructed his droids to lay down a covering fire to keep them pinned down, and it pissed Fox off how effective it was. 

It also worried him, because at this distance it was even odds that the droids would hit one of the senators instead of a trooper or an unfortunate tree. Fox had been working on the assumption that Grievous wanted to capture the senators unharmed, but now? Either Grievous was banking on them staying put to keep the natborns from harm, or he didn't mind what state the Senators were in by the time he got to them. Assuming they were in any kind of state at all. Fox didn't know which one it was, and he hated it.

He tapped his helmet com, and bit back a curse when he realised that the Seppies were close enough to jam their coms again. The blaster fire was still going over their heads, but they were getting closer by the second as the droids pressed forwards. Vita dropped down beside Fox, seemingly from nowhere.

"Sir," he greeted, as a stray blast exploded the rock well above their heads. 

"We can't engage Grievous up close, we're all dead if we do," Fox told him, "we need to get into firing positions and keep them at a distance for as long as possible. If there is a ship coming from Coruscant it should be arriving in the next few hours, maybe less if it's from a nearby fleet. Our only hope is to hold out until then."

Vita nodded.

"Don't suppose you have a sniper rifle on you somewhere sir?" he asked jokingly, and Fox sighed.

"I wish, we're stuck with blasters, they're gonna get a lot closer than is comfortable. Get moving," he instructed.

"Sir," Vita nodded, then stuck his head out from behind the boulder, before tucking back in again and vaulting over it to get down to Pipes. 

"You hear that troopers?" Fox shouted to Ris and Game, and they shouted back in the affirmative. 

"And what should we do?" asked Organa, face strained. Chuchi's face was drawn where she was tucked into the older Senator's side. 

"Get comfortable Senators, we're not going anywhere anytime soon," he told them, before moving around to their other side and finding a nice crevice he could wedge himself into and shoot from. Fox took a steadying breath and settled in, bringing up his blaster and resting the barrel on a convenient notch in the rocky face he was currently sprawled across.

The next two hours passed slowly, punctuated by the occasional shift in position or the spray of rock debris against his bucket as the clankers got in a lucky shot. They were doing a lot more damage to the landscape of Toydaria than they were to Fox's men and the Senators, but it was only a matter of time. Fox's initial estimate of thirty to fifty battle droids proved woefully inaccurate, and they poured out of the jungle in a relentless river of beige durasteel. Fox and his troopers were picking them off pretty easily, as was Sabé, but there were so fucking many of them and they just didn't stop coming. Fox had also seen Senator Amidala picking off the droids with expert precision, but he had decided for his own sanity to ignore it.

Grievous positioned himself on a rock in the middle of the river of droids, comfortably out of range of the blaster fire. He remained almost motionless, watching the battle from afar, occasionally shifting to direct his troops. Fox couldn't hear what he was saying at this distance, but it probably wasn't anything ground-breaking. The fact the droid General hadn't moved in all this time was making Fox antsy. 

Grievous was waiting for something. 

Whatever it was wouldn't be good news for Fox and the people he was trying to keep alive.

"How are you doing Senators?" he shouted down to Chuchi and Organa, crouched down by his knees. 

"I can't say much for the view Commander," Organa yelled back, "but I rather think moving to get a better look at the galaxy renowned Toydarian jungles would be inadvisable at the moment." 

Fox bit back a laugh.

"My apologies Senator," he called over his shoulder, "I'll have a word with General Grievous about moving to a more picturesque location." 

"Don't you worry about us Commander," Organa shouted, "focus on keeping yourself alive for now." 

Fox blinked, picking off a few more droids. 

"And you Senator Chuchi? Do you have any complaints I should relay to the General?" he shouted, deciding to puzzle over the genuine care in Organa's voice later, possibly with a full bottle of moonshine behind the locked door of his office.

"Well, if he could fuck off that would be nice," Chuchi replied, startling a real laugh out of Fox. 

"I'd lecture you on your language, but I hardly think now is the time," said Organa drily.

"I do!" shouted Amidala, "Stop fucking swearing!" 

Fox grinned behind his helmet, as the other troopers laughed around them. A piece of stone bounced off his helmet with a dull thwack and he took out two droids with one shot as they lined up perfectly in his sights. 

Still, Grievous waited. 

Still, no one came for them.

Things started to go downhill very quickly. Pipes' blaster exploded in his hands, caught by a lucky shot, and he fell back with a shout. 

"Pipes!" Fox shouted as the trooper in question slid down the boulder he had been hiding behind, hands curled into his chest. 

"M'okay sir," he called, voice laced with pain, "won't be much good to shoot anymore though, sorry." 

"Not a problem trooper," Fox shouted back to him, glancing at the molten durasteel and blacked flesh of his forearms, "you just sit tight until we can get you out of here." 

Fox hoped they would be able to get him out of there.

"Fox," shouted Vita, "commando droids."

Fox fixed his gaze on Grievous again, who sure enough was surrounded by six commando droids. So that was what he had been waiting for.

_Kark._

Fox picked off a few more of the battle droids, thinking furiously, as Grievous began to move. He was flanked on either side by the commando droids.

"We need to move," shouted Fox, "Senator Organa, would you be able to carry Senator Chuchi?"

The commando droids were moving quickly, leaping from tree to boulder over the B1 droids, changing direction too quickly for Fox to get a decent shot at them. Grievous advanced at a more leisurely pace.

"Keep moving up the mountain," Fox instructed as Organa carefully gathered Chuchi into his arms, "at least if Republic Forces are near, we'll be easy to find. We'll cover you."

He fired again, just clipping a commando droid as it leapt between two boulders. It went down hard but got back up quickly, and still they advanced relentlessly.

"Pipes, Ris, Game. Go with the Senators," he shouted, "don't stop unless you have to."

"Sabé," shouted Amidala, "go with them."

The handmaiden nodded and began to push Organa up the trail, Chuchi curled in his arms. Pipes went behind them, then Ris behind him. Fox switched position and suddenly Amidala was beside him, face covered in grime and sweat.

"Senator Amidala you need to go," he shouted as he managed to catch one of the commando droids' centre mass and it collapsed.

"Not yet Commander Fox," she replied, taking down another battle droid with a frankly beautiful shot, one that Fox would've been proud of.

"And I outrank you, so don't try and make me," she warned him, and Fox bit back a growl. 

"What's the plan Commander?" screamed Vita, continuing to shoot at the oncoming droids. 

"Just keep fucking shooting at them," Fox said, realising he couldn't actually order Amidala to retreat, "we can't let them get close or we're dead." 

Grievous continued to stalk behind the commando droids, but he deflected blaster shots with his stolen lightsabers easily. Vita shot down another commando droid just as Fox heard the familiar sounds of jet engines, as fighter jets soared over their heads started to blast the droid army. Fox could hear Grievous's angry scream from his position further up the gully. 

"Pull back," he shouted as a gunship soared over their heads and the fighter pilots continued to fire on the main body of droids, "get to the ship." 

"Fucking finally," said Vita, and grabbed the Senator by the shoulder and shoved her in front of him as they began running up the hill. He spared a glance to watch them go, then focussed back on the four remaining commando droids. They seemed to slip through the fire from the fighter jets above them like water.

They were too close, too fast. If Fox didn't stop them then they would catch up to the others before they could make it to the gunship, and once that happened the fighter jets would be useless.

Fuck. Okay then.

Fox managed to drop another one with a well-aimed blaster bolt, then turned and ran a few paces up the mountain to duck behind the next boulder when what little luck he possessed ran out, and searing pain lanced his shoulder. Luckily, it wasn't his shooting arm, but the pain made his already exhausted mind that much more confused, and he dropped to one knee, cursing. He pushed himself back up again though, he could still shoot, and if he could keep the commando droids focussed on him the others would have a fighting chance to get free.

He dragged himself behind another boulder and turned to fire again. Another droid down. They were so fucking close now he could hear the electric hum of an electrostaff. Of the two remaining commando droids only one had a blaster, but Fox wasn't sure if that was a good or a bad thing, especially when it also appeared to have a vibrosword attached to it’s back. 

His new position wasn't as well sheltered and as he fired he felt another bolt go through his exposed thigh, right through the duraplast armour. He bit back a scream. Fox tucked himself back into the relative safety of the rocky crevice and slammed his head back a few times to try and clear the fog that was beginning to creep around the edges of his vision. He was losing too much blood.

A commando droid, the one with the blaster, leapt over his head and landed on the rocks above him. It leapt again, twisting in mid-air to aim it's blaster right at Fox. 

He shot it in the head. 

It crashed into him and this time he couldn't hold back the scream as it's full weight hit him in the chest. _Fuck_ , he was pretty sure that'd broken at least a couple of his ribs. He shoved the commando droid off him, and managed to stagger to his feet, vision swimming in and out as he took quick, shallow breaths.

One left.

He could do it.

The others would make it.

Then he could rest.

Fox couldn't put much weight on his leg, but he managed to stagger a few paces, glancing around for the remaining commando droid. For a moment he was afraid it had overtaken him, that he'd failed.

The hum of the electrostaff was the only warning Fox got when the final commando droid leapt down at him from nowhere. He twisted and managed to catch the electrostaff in his hands, though he had to drop his blaster to do it. His back slammed into the ground and he screamed again as the twisted durasteel of his broken armour dug into the blaster wound on his back, as the weight of the thing pressed against his broken ribs, as something dug into the blaster wound on his thigh.

_Just buy them time. Just buy them time._

Fox grit his teeth and kept his grip firm on the staff with one hand, punching the droid in its lifeless face. It didn't do much except probably break a few more of his bones. What did it matter? He wasn't going to need them in a few minutes anyway, so he did it again. Harder.

The commando droid pressed the electrostaff down into his rapidly crumpling chestplate and Fox blacked out for a moment. He kicked up blindly with his last remaining undamaged limb, but it did nothing. The hand not currently holding the electrostaff up off his chest found it's way to the droid's faceplate and slid across it uselessly.

Fox heard another one of his ribs snap audibly and he didn't even have enough air left in his body to scream.

It wouldn't be a bad way to die, thought Fox, not caught in the head by friendly fire like poor Ed. He'd kind of hoped, somewhere along the line, that it wouldn't hurt quite so much. He'd sort of assumed he'd die pathetically smothered by paperwork, or he'd accidentally offend a Senator and be decommissioned. He'd also entertained the idea of finally snapping at the Chancellor, and getting killed by one of the Senate Guard or gored by Mas Amedda's horns. Just a happy little daydream for when he'd been awake for over forty-eight hours and still had another forty-eight to go.

Black clouds were beginning to creep in the edges of his vision when the weight crushing his chest suddenly vanished.

He rolled onto his side, coughing, and when his vision came back, he saw a familiar trooper wearing grey paint shoot the droid point blank from his position on top of it's chest.

Wolffe must have bodily tackled the thing off him.

Fox closed his eyes and tried to breathe, and when he opened them again Wolffe was crouched in front of him. Fox could just about make out Vita behind him, along with a few other members of the 104th.

"Honestly, Fox," Wolffe said, "there are easier ways to get me to visit." 

Fox grabbed his forearm blindly, and Wolffe hauled him to his feet. Vita slipped in under his other side and Fox shouted hoarsely as the wound on his back pulled tight against the half melted back plate. Fox blacked out again as they began to move.

When he came too, they were further up the mountain, closer to the waiting gunship, and Vita was talking under his breath. 

"C'mon Ori'vod, don't fucking do this, we need you," he muttered. 

"S'ry," Fox slurred and Vita glanced at him. Fox couldn't see his expression under his helmet.

"Senator Chuchi has given her express order that you can't die sir," he said firmly, "so you better not kark it." 

"M'trying," Fox said, his legs moving of their own accord, and not well. 

Wolffe swore and swept him up bridal style. Fox would have complained but the pain made him black out again. When he came back online again Wolffe was lifting him onto the floor of the gunship. He didn't know what noise he made as his back hit the floor, but he didn't think it was a nice one. _Kriff_ , everything hurt. 

He saw Chuchi, still clutched in Organa's arms where he rested against the far wall of the gunship. Her face was covered in grime, cut through with tear tracks. He tried to offer her a comforting smile before he remembered he was still wearing his bucket. 

"Everyone in, we're leaving!" shouted Wolffe. 

When did Wolffe get here? 

Fox twisted his head to look around and spied Amidala and Sabé tucked against the back wall of the gunship, unharmed. Whoever was crouched over Fox made an annoyed noise and began to remove his helmet, and he tried to bat their hands away in blind panic.

"Sir," they shouted, "Sir, can you stay karking still?" 

Vita. It was Vita. 

Fox let Vita remove his helmet. 

"Sir, were you hit on the head?" 

Fox blinked at him. 

"Ori'vod," Vita said, leaning over him. The doors sealed shut and the gunship took off. Fox was pretty sure he could still hear Grievous' screaming in rage. He laughed. 

He could taste blood in his mouth.

"Thas not good," he slurred, and Wolffe's face swam into view above him. 

Why was Wolffe here? 

"To get you, you karking di'kut," Wolffe snarled. 

Oh. He was talking. 

"Yeah, you are sir," Vita said, "I think you've got a concussion." 

"Okay," Fox said "M'gonna pass out now." 

"Fox, no! You have to stay awake! Ori'vod!"

But Fox was so tired.

"Fox you stay awake you little shit," shouted Wolffe, fear evident in his voice.

Why was he afraid?

Fox's last conscious thought was vaguely apologetic toward Wolffe, but he was too tired to care.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahahahhahahahahhahhahahahahahahah
> 
> Hi Wolffe. Welcome to the party. I love you. 
> 
> Also holy shit someone did a fan art? of my fic?  
> https://nostalgia4light.tumblr.com/post/644580406799302656/fox-in-maddybs-commander-fox-is-completely  
> Thank you very much to turbo_geek, it is... kisses fingers, like an Italian chef on a cooking show, making a fancy pasta dish on a table in front of a vineyard... or like lavender fields or some shit. He's wearing a light shirt with the top few buttons undone and he's low key hot.
> 
> It's a tomato based sauce, with fresh seafood and a fuck ton of garlic. in case you were wondering.


	6. Agricultural Report: Southern Hemisphere of Pantora, Subsection: rainfall and irrigation.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the second time in a month, Fox woke up in the medbay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My presentation for work is tomorrow so I am doing this instead.
> 
> Who in the fuck let me be an adult? I am clearly not qualified.
> 
> OH WELL PLEASE ENJOY THIS I NEED VALIDATION

For the second time in a month, Fox woke up in the medbay. 

"...sectors 36, 37 and 42 had surplus to requirement volume of rainwater in the first quarter of the year…"

Fox opened his eyes and stared at the durasteel ceiling. The thrum of hyperdrive engines intertwined with the voice reading out the meaningless figures to create a relaxing, if somewhat confusing, atmosphere. He turned his head to the side, hoping to see the source of the voice. 

Senator Riyo Chuchi was sitting in a chair by the side of his bed, her legs crossed and a datapad in her lap. 

"What're you reading?" Fox asked her. 

Chuchi's face snapped towards him, startled.

"Um," she fumbled with the datapad, "agricultural reports. Irrigation in Pantora's southern hemisphere."

"Okay," Fox looked at her, "Why?"

"I thought I would read to you," she explained, "whilst you were unconscious."

Well, that made no sense.

"But I can only access my work com account from this datapad, not my private one, and I had all these reports to catch up on so… irrigation." 

"Oh," Fox said, still completely nonplussed, "well… thank you, Senator."

"How are you feeling?" she asked him. 

Fox assessed himself carefully. 

"To be honest," he said slowly, "I don't feel much of anything, Senator." 

It was sort of fantastic.

She bit her lip and her eyes darted to the floor. Fox was pleased to note that the bruises and cuts that had littered her face on Toydaria were gone. She must've been in bacta. 

"How is your ankle?" he asked.

"It's fine, a little tender, but the bone has healed." 

"Good." 

"You were shot three times," Chuchi said abruptly, staring at him. 

"Oh," Fox said, "I only counted twice."

Chuchi looked at him strangely.

"It's not your fault, Senator," he added, remembering their late-night chat. 

"I know," she huffed, "everyone keeps telling me. But… it was scary," she fiddled with the datapad and scowled down at her hands. 

"I thought you were going to die," she said quietly. Dressed in what looked like a trooper's spare blacks, with white boots and a thin blanket tucked around her shoulders, she looked so kriffing young it was almost physically painful.

"I'm sorry," Fox said, staring at the baby Senator. 

"That's not," she blew out a frustrated breath, "I didn't mean… it's not your fault either." 

They lapsed into silence as Fox shoved himself up the bed and looked around the medbay. They were the only ones there. 

"Senator, is everyone else… " he started, unsure how to finish his question. Alive? In one piece?

"Senators Amidala and Organa, and Ms Sabé all had superficial wounds, and mild dehydration. Nothing that couldn't be fixed with a bacta spray and a fluid drip. Same with troopers Ris, Game and Vita." She paused, "Pipes' hands are fine, he was out of the bacta tank before I was." 

She wrinkled her nose in distaste.

"Your first time in a bacta tank?" he asked gently. 

She nodded.

"I didn't like it," she said, fidgeting with the datapad. 

"Not many people do," Fox replied blandly, looking down at his chest. He realised he was shirtless, and he didn't think he was wearing any pants either. Thankfully, he appeared to be wearing briefs, although no amount of painkillers could take the edge of the realisation that he was basically naked in front of the very young, very impressionable Senator. 

There was an ugly blaster scar just below his right pectoral which he didn't remember having before. That second to last commando droid must have got him just before he shot it and its lifeless metal corpse crushed his ribcage.

"It was a waste of bacta," Chuchi continued, oblivious to his slight panic over his near nakedness, "I only needed a bucket or something for my ankle." 

She was right, of course, but there wasn't that kind of technology yet. Or if there was, it certainly wasn't available to the GAR or Guard.

"Senator," Fox said awkwardly, "if you don't mind, could you tell me how long I have been unconscious for?" 

"Oh!" Chuchi blushed. "I'm sorry, I should've-"

"It's okay,” Fox reassured her, heart aching slightly at her earnestness.

"You've been unconscious for four days. They brought you out of the bacta tank yesterday," she told him. 

"Almost a week?" Fox frowned in confusion. "Why are we not back to Coruscant already?" 

"Well, once General Koon retrieved us from Toydaria, the medics said you would die if you didn't go into bacta as soon as possible," Chuchi said, her voice trembling slightly. "As this ship does not have any bacta tanks, the decision was made to divert to a nearby medical station. When you came out of the bacta tank yesterday we transferred back to the ship. I've- I mean we've- been waiting for you to wake up since." She flushed slightly and looked away from him again. "We're only a few hours out from Coruscant now." 

"Thank you, Senator," he said, and they lapsed into awkward silence again. Fox glanced around to see if he could see any clothes, but there were none.

"I don't suppose you know where my men are, Senator Chuchi?" Fox asked instead. 

"Oh!" she jumped again, "yes. Um. I could take you to them if you'd like?" 

"That would be nice Senator, however…" Fox gestured awkwardly at his naked torso.

"Right!" 

Chuchi hopped off her chair and moved carefully to a cabinet across the room. She was hesitant on her newly healed ankle, and Fox wondered if she'd need some physical therapy to get her ankle back in shape, or whether it was all in her head. He'd known that to happen, troopers went into bacta with broken legs and came out a week later, completely healed, but their brain would scream at them to be careful. Hell, it happened to him, the first time he'd had a major injury. He went in with a broken femur and when he woke up he was completely fine, but every time something had touched his leg he’d flinched, sure that it would cause him agony.

Chuchi pulled something out of a draw and walked slowly back over to him, every step on her recently healed ankle careful and deliberate.

"Here," she passed him a set of off duty reds and stepped back expectantly. 

Fox looked at her pointedly, and she flushed deep blue before she turned around to give him some privacy. 

He slid off the bed tentatively and settled his weight on his legs. He noted the new blaster burn that scored from his knee to his mid-thigh, before quickly getting dressed. Finally, he put on the boots before standing back up. 

"I'm decent, Senator," he said, brushing invisible dust off his chest absentmindedly. 

She turned around and smiled at him shyly, before walking over and tentatively tugging at his elbow and looping one of her hands through it. 

Fox wasn't quite sure what to do about this new development. 

Protocol dictated that he should walk a few steps behind the Senator, to show the proper deference to her station. Protocol also dictated that he should do his best to fulfil any and all orders from the Senator, so he probably shouldn't shrug off the tiny hand that was looped around his elbow, even with how bloody weird it all was.

Members of the 104th gave them a wide berth as Chuchi led Fox through the halls of whichever star destroyer they were on. He could feel their disdain for him through their grey painted buckets, but the GARs hatred of him and his men had long ceased to bother him. 

They didn't know. 

As they walked, he noticed that the white boots Chuchi was wearing weren't boots at all, but we're in fact strips of white fabric wrapped around her feet. They mustn't have had any real shoes in her size at the medical station, he thought vaguely.

Eventually they arrived at what must have been the mess hall.

Silence fell as they entered.

Chuchi stumbled to a stop, eyes wide. Fox placed a comforting hand over the one that was attached to his arm. Definitely a breach in protocol, that. 

"Senator. Commander Fox," a voice shouted from the far corner, and Fox turned to see a familiar red painted armoured arm waving at him. Ris wasn't wearing his helmet, so Fox could see his genuine smile. 

As they moved through the mess hall, chatter began to pick back up again and Chuchi's shoulders relaxed minutely. 

Fox let Chuchi slide onto the bench between Pipes and Ris, then walked around the other side of the table to sit in the space that Game and Vita had hastily created between them. 

He didn't know why, he would've happily sat on the end. 

Like him, Pipes was dressed in off duty reds, but the rest of them were wearing their armour, sans helmet and gloves while they ate. 

"Good to see you up and about, Sir," Game said, grinning at him.

"I'll get you something to eat," Ris said, "would you like anything Senator?"

Chuchi blinked. 

"Oh, um, yes please," she said shyly, and Ris bounded off to grab them two trays of whatever slop they served as mid meal here.

"How're you feeling Commander?" Pipes asked, leaning forward over his tray. 

"Well, thank you Pipes," said Fox, still somewhat confused by the smiles they were all aiming at him, "and you? How are your hands?" 

"Good as new Sir," he said, holding up his hands and wiggling his fingers to demonstrate.

"Good, and everyone else?" 

Fox glanced around the table to get a better look at each of them. 

"We're fine sir," said Vita, "you're the one who had two cracked ribs, five broken ones, a partially collapsed lung and three blaster wounds." 

He sounded angry.

"Oh. And a concussion."

Why did he sound so angry?

Ris dropped a meal tray in front of Fox before he could figure out why Vita was cross with him. Now that food was directly in front of him, he realised he was starving, and he took a large spoonful of the beige slop in front of him, before stopping in surprise. 

"Well, that's depressing," he said without thinking, staring down at the tray in front of him. 

"It's not very appetising is it," Chuchi murmured, poking at her own beige slop warily. 

"I think the Commander means because it's a damn sight nicer than what we usually get," muttered Vita, still cross for some reason. 

Honestly though, there was a pudding cup and everything.

Chuchi blinked at them in surprise.

"But… these are standard GAR rations," she said slowly, poking the sludge with even more confusion.

"We're not the GAR," Pipes explained, "the Guard is a separate body. For some reason." 

"Oh," said Chuchi, frowning down at her meal.

"But also not completely separate," Vita added, "I think our official role is as a Military Police Force. No one really understands." 

They all turned to Fox. 

He shifted uncomfortably.

"I don't know either," he admitted cautiously, "At first we were simply the military police, but as the war worsens, we are taking on more responsibility from the Coruscant Security Force and the Senate Guard. All I know is that I answer directly to the Chancellor, and I do what he tells me to." 

Fox doesn't quite know why saying that out loud makes him feel so uneasy. It's all public record, even if it isn't widely known. Chuchi frowned at him. 

"But why does that mean you have different rations?" she asked after a pause. 

Fox shrugged. 

"I don't get to make any of those decisions. While I don't directly report to anyone but the Chancellor, I am still outranked by the GAR Generals and Admirals. They make those kinds of decisions, about where funds are allocated, what equipment we use and so forth." 

"That doesn't seem very fair," said Chuchi, finally taking a bite of her beige sludge.

All the troopers stared at her, Fox included.

Of course it wasn't fair.

_ Nothing about their lives was fair. _

Pipes cleared his throat awkwardly. 

"Anyway," he said, drawing out the last syllable and unsubtly changing the subject. "Commander. Would you have to arrest me if I snuck a load of pudding cups off the ship once we reached Coruscant." 

Fox snorted. 

"Yes," he said, watching Pipes deflate, "and then I would be forced to seize the pudding cups as evidence and dispose of them accordingly." 

Ris laughed. 

"You should eat them all outside his cell Sir, so he can watch and suffer," he said, grinning.

"I think that counts as cruel and unusual punishment," Vita mused. 

"I think you mean poetic justice," added Game, smiling slightly.

"I just want some damn pudding cups," moaned Pipes dramatically, making Chuchi giggle. 

It was strange, Fox noted as the painkillers began to wear off and he became more aware of his surroundings as well as the ache in his chest, how at ease the men were with the Senator. Sure, she was a baby Senator, but she was a Senator all the same. Maybe it was because she was so young. It was hard to think of her as a Senator when she was so damn shiny. Or maybe it was the shared near-death experience.

Over her head, Fox spied a group of people approaching their table.

Senator Amidala, Senator Organa, Ms Sabé. 

General Koon. 

Commander Wolffe.

Fox stood to attention and the rest of the Guard troops followed. 

"At ease gentlemen," Koon rumbled through his anti-ox mask. Automatically they all fell into parade rest. Wolffe had his helmet tucked underneath his arm and so Fox could see with almost painful clarity the strange look Wolffe gave him. The Senators took it in their stride, they'd never known the Guard to act with anything other than perfect protocol. Fox had no idea what General Koon thought of it, unable to discern any kind of expression through his mask. Fascinating species, the Kel Dor.

"Commander Fox, it's good to see you up and about," Organa said, smiling amiably. He appeared to be wearing a spare Jedi robe over some trooper blacks. Amidala and her Handmaiden both wore the same blacks and blanket combo that Chuchi was wearing, albeit with boots only slightly too big for their feet.

"That being said, please do sit down," Amidala said. Once the rest of the troops had sat down, Fox followed. It was awkward, looking up at them from below, but Fox's chest really was beginning to ache something fierce.

"Commander Fox," said the Kel Dor General, "I am truly glad to see you awake. I had thought we might lose you when we picked you up from Toydaria."

"Thank you, General," Fox said, and hoped it didn't come out as awkward as he felt it did. 

But really, what did you say to that?

"It is no trouble Commander," Koon said, "I have heard it is largely down to yourself that there were any survivors for us to collect at all." 

Fox frowned. 

"Any of my men would have made the same decisions General," he said carefully, "they are highly trained, and we all memorised the same set of exit strategies before the mission." 

"But they were your exit strategies, were they not?" General Koon said, tilting his head in a way that Fox guessed meant he was being scrutinized.

"Yes sir," he said cautiously, still confused.

"And your training?" 

"Yes." 

"Just take the compliment Vod," said Wolffe, and Fox tried not to flinch.

"If I might, General," he said slowly, "I thought the 104th would be unavailable to assist us, what with the ongoing battle at Kashyyyk."

Something flickered across Wolffe's expression. 

"How did you know that?" he asked, shifting slightly. 

Because I obsessively check on each of my batchmates and also Rex to make sure you're still alive, Fox thought.

"I checked the closest Republic assets the morning of the conference," Fox said instead. It was as true as the first thing anyway.

"Very prudent Commander," Koon said, "and to answer your question, we were redeployed when no other forces were available to retrieve you. The 212th reached Kashyyyk the same afternoon we retrieved you from Toydaria."

"Thank you for clarifying that, General," Fox said, flexing his fingers on his knees. 

Everyone was looking at him still.

Koon bowed his head. 

"I must go and prepare for landing," he said, "Senators." With that, he turned and swept out of the mess, his robes fanning out behind him. 

Wolffe glanced at Fox before quietly traipsing out on the heels of his General. Yeah. That was to be expected. Fox tried to pretend it didn't hurt anyway.

Amidala walked around the table and sat on the other side of Vita, Sabé next to her. Organa sank down in the seat opposite Amidala, beside Ris. Fox swallowed and shifted uncomfortably in his seat. The rest of the troopers remained relaxed beside him, shifting to include the Senators and Sabé in their little group with an air of familiarity that confused Fox. 

He had only been unconscious for four days, what the  _ hell _ had happened in the meantime?

Fox decided to let the conversation wash over him as he ate his mildly pleasant beige sludge. It was a big upgrade on the wholly unpleasant grey sludge he usually ate, when he hadn't scraped together enough of his measly allowance for something else, so almost always. Around him they discussed a few games of sabacc that had been played. Organa had apparently wiped the floor with the competition on the first night and spent the rest of the week attempting to teach the group. 

It didn't sound like the lessons had been going well. 

Game and Vita were most at ease with the Senators, laughing and joking as if they were back in the mess hall at the guard barracks, surrounded by their vode. Pipes and Ris were a little more quiet, respectful, but Pipes still made a quiet comment about Organa cheating that made Fox want to throw himself in front of Pipes to save him from the Senator's wrath at being besmirched. The wrath was not forthcoming. Organa found it hilarious. If anything, Chuchi seemed the most uncomfortable, blushing shyly as Amidala tried to bring her into the conversation. Fox wasn't uncomfortable, per say. These three Senators, and Sabé that matter, wouldn't make a complaint against their behaviour. They were actively encouraging it.

It just…

It just made Fox worry that the four Vode would forget, would joke about the dishonourable behaviour of a different senator, and Fox wouldn't be able to get there in time to save them. He knew it was unlikely, they were smart. Still, the voice in the back of his head that told him everything was going to go wrong all the time, the voice that said his batch brothers would rather die out on the battlefield than ever talk to him again, was screaming at them that they were going to get themselves killed. 

It took so much of Fox's energy to ignore the voice in the back of his head. He knew, he knew, that it wasn't true. That those situations would never come to pass.

He knew that his brothers probably didn't even think of him at all anymore, until they had the misfortune to run across him.

He knew that it was much more likely that these boys would do absolutely nothing wrong and they would still end up dead like Ed and Potts and Chips and Tabby, along with countless other Guards.

It didn't really help.

Fox kept listening as the conversation turned to a cheesy holodrama that Amidala, Sabé, and surprisingly Vita had all seen, and were trying to explain the plot of. Fox ate his pudding cup slowly as between them, they described the romance, or friendship depending on who was talking, between two previously mortal enemies, who were from different families, or species, or something, and had decided to team up with one another to prevent the collapse of the galaxy, literally or figuratively. 

Fox was honestly more focused on his pudding cup.

It didn't help that they kept contradicting one another and arguing about minor plot points and what it meant for the relationship between the two main characters. 

Then Chuchi mentioned a certain episode and they spent ten minutes arguing about the implication of a look that one of the characters had given the other one. It got surprisingly heated between Amidala and Sabé, though the smiles didn't leave their faces the whole time.

Organa had begun to deliberately and gleefully stir the shit between them, when the hum of the engines died down and they dropped out of hyperspace above Coruscant. 

Apparently the 104th were taking the chance to actually land their cruiser on Coruscant, in the shipyards, for various repairs and an upgrade to their hyperdrive, so there was nothing for Fox to do except wait to land. The closer they got to the surface, the pressure that had been slowly building in the back of Fox's skull grew tenfold. 

It was safe to say he had mixed feelings being back on about Coruscant. On the one hand, he would be able to get back to work. He wasn't oblivious, he knew exactly how much of a control freak he was. He didn't think anyone in his situation would do differently. The anxiety had been slowly climbing ever since he realised that he didn't have a com unit, and that no one could call him if they needed him. That anything could be happening in the Guard headquarters or the Senate Building right now, and he wouldn't know.

But Fox did have to admit that these few hours between unconsciousness and returning to base, while not the vacation Thorn had promised him, were somewhat pleasant.

As was not having to deal with the Chancellor and all his osik.

On top of all that the stares from the 104th, the aggressive posturing, the disdain, were becoming increasingly unpleasant. Game, as the youngest among them, seemed the most bothered by it, going as far as to flinch as one of the 104th bumped against his back. He'd probably never interacted with any GAR troopers since he and his squad were deployed into the Guard. The Senators seemed largely oblivious, unused as they were to the way that the Vode interacted with one another. Sabé, on the other hand, had definitely noticed. Her gaze flicked between Game's hunched shoulders, Ris's fingers flexing into fists, and the curled lips onl faces of the 104th. Fox met her gaze head on when she turned to look at him, though he had no idea what conclusions she drew from his face. 

They made their way slowly toward the rear doors of the star cruiser as it landed, and the engines shut down. Thankfully for Fox's blood pressure the Senators led the way, Amidala and Chuchi followed by Sabé and Organa, Fox and his troopers bringing up the rear. Ris, Game and Vita had all replaced their helmets as they'd departed the mess, but Pipes and Fox's armours had been declared beyond saving and relegated to the scrap heap. His own, Fox could understand. Pipes's he wasn't so sure, but the trooper had been in bacta at the time, and he didn't seem to have an answer either.

Fox wondered if it had been some bizarre act of vengeance on the part of the 104th, simply because they were Guards. 

Whatever had happened, Fox felt completely naked and exposed as he stood behind the Senators and the General as they waited for the spaceport authorities to give the all clear to begin unloading. 

Wolffe fell in beside him.

Of course, the spaceport authorities were all Coruscant Guard troops, and therefore ruthlessly efficient, so they didn't have to wait long.

Fox followed the Senators down the ramp to where their relief detail was waiting to take them back to the Senators quarters. Fox gave brief instructions, then turned to say goodbye to the Senators.

Organa shook his hand with a tired smile.

Amidala kissed his cheek and Sabé smiled at him. 

Chuchi hugged him and whispered thank you into his chest. 

In the middle of the spaceport.

Where anyone could see. 

Fox watched their transport leave, a strange buzzing in his ears. He still didn't have a com, so he couldn't call for their own transport back to the barracks. He'd have to speak to one of the port officers, organise a transport, and get the men dropped off at the barracks. Once he'd grabbed a new armour he'd have to make his way over to the headquarters and transfer his com code into the helmet and start getting caught up on work. 

No rest for the wicked.

Or Fox, more importantly.

He scanned the spaceport when he caught sight of General Koon, still standing beside Fox's men. Wolffe stood dutifully behind him, a strange look on his face. Fox hated that he wasn't immediately able to place it. It was like looking at Cody in his office all those weeks ago, so familiar and yet so different. Wolffe stared intently at Fox as he made his way back over to the group, something uncomfortable in his gut.

"Ah, Commander Fox," Koon rumbled through his anti-ox mask. Or he might have sounded like that without it, Fox had no real way of knowing. "I was just commending your men on their bravery and resilience on Toydaria." 

"Thank you, General," Fox said, automatically slipping into his talking-to-Senators voice. Mild and unaffected. "That means a lot, coming from you sir." 

Fox didn't know whether it was weird Jedi stuff, weird Kel Dor anti-ox mask stuff, or whether it was Koon specific, that made him so uncomfortable under the man's gaze. It gave the impression of being intent, when actually the man could have his eyes closed for all Fox knew.

"You lost four men?" Koon asked, still inscrutable. Fox wished he was wearing his armour, so he didn't have to put so much effort into being the same.

"Yes sir." 

"I am sorry for your loss, Commander." 

Fox blinked.

"I- thank you, General," he said, his fingers twitching where his hands were clasped behind his back.

No natborn had ever said anything like that to him.

"They march onwards in honour," the Kel Dor said, quieter than before. Gentle, even. 

Pipes ducked his head to stare at the floor, while the three armoured troopers stood stock still. 

Fox didn't have any protocols for this. 

"Yes sir," he said. Half agreement, half confusion.

Wolffe kept staring at him, and Fox still couldn't tell what that meant.

"If I might-" started Koon, but he was interrupted by a booming bark. A familiar booming bark. Almost everyone in the space port turned towards the source of the noise as one. 

Sergeant Hound was walking away from a newly parked Guard transport, Grizzer straining at his lead.

Nothing could stop Fox's full body flinch at the sight.

Hound walked up to their group, uncaring that everyone was staring at him and the slobbering massiff beside him. Once Hound reached them, he stood to perfect attention, Grizzer beside him. Grizzer's entire body quaked with excitement as he gazed up at Fox.

Fox's temple began to throb warningly.

Hound had never stood to perfect attention in his damn life.

"Sergeant Hound," Fox greeted, trying to remain calm and professional.

"Sir," Hound replied. As always, he made it sound like he was saying 'shit head'.

"What are you doing here trooper?" 

Something in his tone must give him away, because Wolffe's gaze sharpened instantly.

"I'm here to escort you and the Guard troopers to the medical centre as per Chief Medical Officer Carrion's instruction, Sir." 

Fox stared at Hounds irritatingly expressionless visor. They didn't even like each other.

"And Grizzer?" he grit out. Grizzer's excited vibrating increased exponentially when Fox said his name.

"Ah," said Hound. Fox could feel his smirk through his bucket, "Lieutenant Commander Grizzer just missed you. Sir."

Fox sighed.

"That," Hound continued, "and Chief Medical Officer Carrion was afraid you might try and run for it." 

Fox closed his eyes momentarily. Then he looked at Grizzer. Then he looked at Hound.

"He was also muttering something about how he was going to revoke your rib privileges," Hound continued, completely impervious to Fox's ire as always. "I don't know what that means, Sir, but he doesn't seem pleased that you managed to break your ribs only a week or so after he fixed them up for you." Hound shook his head in admonishment.

For kriffs sake.

Fox glared at Hound as Koon tilted his head in interest. Wolffe returned his gaze to Fox, frowning slightly.

Grizzer whined beside him, so Fox took pity on him and scratched him on the forehead. The massif pressed himself against Fox's thigh and closed his eyes in ecstasy, foot thumping against the durasteel floor of the spaceport. While he continued to scratch Grizzer's forehead, Fox noticed that the animal had gained a new addition to his little jacket. 

A very specific addition.

"Sergeant Hound," Fox said.

"Commander Fox," Hound replied.

"Would you mind telling me why Grizzer is wearing a Lieutenant Commander's pauldron?" Fox said, voice mild as possible so Hound knows he is on thin fucking ice.

"Lieutenant Commander Grizzer is wearing a Lieutenant Commander's pauldron because he is a Lieutenant Commander. Sir."

The next time Fox is alone with Hound he is going to reach down his throat and pull out his heart. Or just invite him to spar and then throw him out of a window, accidentally on purpose.

Fox stared at Hound. Hound tilted his head. 

"You promoted him, Sir. Don't you remember?" Hound said, oh so innocently.

Scratch that, Fox is going to throw him out of several windows.

"That," Fox said, "was. A.  _ Joke _ ."

"Well, that's what I said Sir," Hound replied, butter mild and unaffected. "But Commander Thorn was adamant that you don't tell jokes, Sir."

Fox closed his eyes and prayed to all the gods he didn't believe in for strength. 

"After a certain point," Hound mused, "I think we were just curious to see how far we could push the paperwork through." 

Fox opened his eyes in abject horror. 

"There's paperwork attached to this shit?"

He only barely managed not to shout it to the whole karking spaceport.

"Yeah. It's all official," Hound said, dropping his annoying fake deferential attitude and becoming his unapologetic shithead self in the blink of an eye, sagging back into his usual slouched position with a simple cock of his hip. "We're as surprised as you are that it worked." 

"Wait," Fox said, crossing his arms over his chest, "those forms need a clone number." 

"Yup," said Hound gleefully, "meet CC-0000." 

Fox looked down at Grizzer. 

Some fucker had scrawled CC-0000 onto his pauldron. 

"For fucks sake Hound," he groused, already trying to figure out how to close that potentially dangerous loophole. 

"Ah don't worry Fox," the arsehole in chief replied, "Stone plugged the gap as soon as we realised it was there. It's all sorted."

"Why did it have to be a CC number," Fox bitched. Grizzer slammed his weight against Fox's legs in complaint, so Fox resumed scratching his forehead with one hand. 

"Thorn wanted to promote him to Commander status and then demote himself to get out of doing paperwork, but he passed out from the moonshine before he could get that far." 

Small mercies, Fox supposed.

Koon made an amused noise.

Fuck. 

_ General Koon.  _

Fox snapped back into parade rest so quickly he was pretty sure he gave himself whiplash. 

"General, I apologise-" 

Koon held up a hand to silence him. 

"Do not worry about it, Commander Fox," he tilted his head and zeroed in on Hound, who was still slouched. Grizzer whined at Fox again. 

"Does Commander Fox tell a lot of jokes, Sergeant Hound?" the Kel Dor General asked mildly.

_ Fuck fuck fuckity fuck.  _

"Oh yeah," replied Hound enthusiastically, "Fox tells jokes all the time. His favourite is that my growth tube was actually a septic tank, because I'm such a huge pile of stinking shit." 

Pipes made a choking sound and Game visibly twitched.

Fox was going to murder Hound.

The resultant paperwork he would generate for having to arrest himself would be  _ so worth it. _

"That's a good one," said Wolffe casually, "I might have to use it." 

Fox swallowed and didn't look at his batch brother.

"My favourite," said Vita, and what the fresh hell was that about, "was when we were escorting some Senators to a festival on the outer rim, and on the way back a bomb exploded and took out the engines and the rear half of the ship. We were stuck behind some blast doors, because there was a huge hole in the ship, and Commander Fox said 'let me know if those doors open. I'm joking. We'll already be dead.'"

The group turned to stare at Vita, who shrugged unapologetically. 

"Well, I thought it was funny," he muttered.

"Quite," said General Koon.

"We need to go," said Fox, almost shouted in desperation, as Grizzer leaned harder against his leg and whined even louder to be pet. "Don't want to keep Carrion waiting." 

This needed to end as soon as possible.

Hound tilted his head. 

"You? Going to med bay without a fight? And you aren't even unconscious?" 

Fox was going to rip out his jaw when he got the chance. 

"Just move it Sergeant," he said through gritted teeth, and Hound laughed out loud at him before turning to walk back to the transport. With a tilt of Fox's head, the rest of the Guard troops followed. Grizzer remained leaning against Fox's leg, Hound having apparently removed his lead at some fucking point, for some fucking reason.

"General Koon," Fox said, straightening and trying to ignore Grizzer's pleading whines, "please accept my apologies. That was unacceptable behaviour and-" 

"Commander Fox," Koon interrupted, "it was perfectly acceptable behaviour. I could sense that your friend was very concerned about your well-being. He merely wished to see for himself." 

"Right," said Fox, uncertainly. Jedi osik, presumably.

"Your men are very loyal to you," the General continued. "You must be quite the man, to inspire such devotion in them." 

Fox swallowed. 

"I'm- I'm not-" he lapsed into silence. 

Because what the fuck was Fox supposed to say to that?

I'm not special.

I'm not worth their respect, their devotion.

_ I can't save them. _

"It was nice to meet you Commander Fox," Koon said, and held out his hand. Fox shook it with a firmness he didn't feel, and the General walked away to speak to some of his men. 

Wolffe stayed.

He reached out with the arm that wasn't holding his helmet and put an ungloved hand on Fox's shoulder. 

He could feel the warmth of it through the off-duty reds he was wearing. 

"Nice to see you again Fox'ika," he murmured, then turned to follow his General.

Fox watched his batch brother walk away with a lump in his throat. Then he too turned and walked away, Grizzer at his heel, to the waiting Guard transport.

The door closed behind him, and he looked at Hound who was leaning against the opposite wall. 

"It's not a joke," Fox said. 

Hound tilted his head in curiosity. 

"It's a fact." Fox continued.

The troops turned to face him. 

"You are a stinking pile of shit, and your growth tube was a karking septic tank,  _ you asshole _ ."

Hound threw his head back and laughed. 

"Good to have you back Ori'vod," he said, "good to have you back."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The return of Grizzer and Hound!!! Hound loves his big brother sooooo much. They all do. Fox has a serious self image problem and has no fucking clue bless himmmmm.
> 
> Also, while the GAR troops do look down on the Guard, Wolffe and Cody (and the rest of the batch) don't feel that way about Fox. Unfortunately they are all emotionally stunted silly boys and have no idea how to talk about their emotions to each other so they're just going to keep out awkwarding one another until... idk. One of them dies? LOL NO WHO AM I, DAVE FILONI? THEY'LL WORK THEIR SHIT OUT EVENTUALLY ITS THE WHOLE POINT OF MY FIC AND ALSO NONE OF MY FAVES DIE BUT THEYRE ALL MY FAVES.
> 
> Anyway I love reading everyone's comments even if I don't reply. XXXXXXXXXXX


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